Saturday, February 5, 2011

Journal Gerritsen Beach: not quite a Reporter, but Raking Muck and collecting Wrath

He paced living room of his apartment duplex, gathering its things: a digital camera, an iPhone, a black leather jacket.

"I'm about to get crushed," said, running his hands through his hair.

Then Mr. Cavanagh, 26, has pushed the three blocks to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of St James — the place of meeting of the Association Gerritsen Beach property owners. It was earlier this month, and was the first time Mr. Cavanagh was back to the room great church meeting since November, when he exploded his relationship with the small district simmering block south of Brooklyn.

His blog, GerritsenBeach.net, was at the center of controversy. The day after Halloween, Mr. Cavanagh posted photos from the day before, adolescents throwing rocks, potatoes and other things to the cars, buses and people.

Packed in the basement of the church a few days later, exasperated neighbors Mr. Cavanagh has said that he was "destroying" neighborhood — that is, if he doesn't like the beach, he must leave.

Soon after, someone threw a pumpkin at the House of Mr. Cavanagh of the father. Girlfriend's car was scratched with a key. A man waited to confront Mr. Cavanagh outside a bar in the neighborhood, but a bouncer intervened.

"I was definitely the Messenger", said Mr. Cavanagh, "and were shooting the Messenger".

But he is a new type of messenger. Mr. Cavanagh, computer consultant, who was born and raised in Gerritsen Beach, started his blog in 2006 because her neighborhood — population around 5000 — was rarely in newspapers. Began covering the local meetings, photographing events and scenes of crime.

Like many bloggers, Mr. Cavanagh calls himself a reporter, and he shrugs off the standards of traditional media — a fact that has, in part, led to debate acute in this small community, where there are no underground lines and many families have lived for generations. Here, the blogosphere is seen as a creature of Manhattan.

Halloween post by Mr. Cavanagh recorded more than a thousand comments — the site gets typically 900 or so page views per day — and earned him the title "Vigilante bloggers" from Gawker.

But problems of Mr. Cavanagh had started long before. He points to "Gate of wood-Chip" — as Gerritsen Beach residents call it often — as the moment when they were drawn lines of battle.

In early 2009, Mr. Cavanagh has posted a couple of blog entries, and a video interview on what seemed to be dumped not quite-legal just off the main street of the neighborhood, Avenue Gerritsen, on land owned by the city's Parks Department.

The post's Michael Taylor, President of Gerritsen Beach Cares, or GB Cares, a local non-profit group. The Organization has had an affair with a contractor who, in exchange for a place to dump of wood chips, would allow GB Cares heavy equipment access for neighborhood projects.

But cares GB did written approval from the Department of parks, instead of relying, as often had, on a "handshake deal," as John Douglas, Chairman of the group, to put it.

The Department of parks, "Mr. Cavanagh recalls," saw my story and told GB Cares, "Whoa — you need written approval for anything on our park. ' That essentially crippled GB Cares. "

Mr. Taylor, the posts were attacks Cares GB and a betrayal of beach culture of volunteering. And he was furious that Mr. Cavanagh had not given the opportunity to speak before the items were recorded.

Mr. Cavanagh, places expressed as had always been done things on the beach. He has not spoken with anyone in your organization before submitting entries because Mr. Taylor had said his car "would end up in creek" If wrote about the project, he said. (Mr. Taylor said he doesn't "remember something like that.")

Approach of Mr. Cavanagh has raised questions about journalistic standards of the age of the blog, and Mr. Cavanagh reporting. Has published an interview with an employee of landfill sites, for example, but not told a worker that the conversation was from tape, that he was a blogger or that he could publish the interview on your site.

"Did not identify themselves as anything because I didn't and still don't really like, classify me nothing," said Mr. Cavanagh.

The views of professional journalists vary these tactics.


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app Smart: how to make your iPhone gently weep

If you're musically inclined, the answer is probably yes, because they are much shorter supply on most Apple devices Android apps for musicians. Just look at what is available for players of the country's most popular tool, the guitar.

On Android, you can click through some passable tuners and scaling guides. About Apple, you have apps that can breathe new life into the tool.

For around $ 50 and a connector inexpensive hardware, versions of applications like AmpliTube, AmpKit iShred Live give guitarists and a mobile recording studio with almost every traditional sound effect. And you can test more limited versions of these applications for much less money.

For hobbyists who do not possess an array of amps and effects pedals, but who wants to experiment with sound, the applications are great fun. For professionals, applications are basically when building and new ideas, while away from the recording studio.

Of the three, I found AmpKit +, the full version of app, the easiest, most versatile and best value, especially on an iPad. The app costs $ 20; the free version is limited.

As the limited version of other applications of guitar, iShred Live is free, with more guitar effects available ? la carte restaurant within the application. The full version of AmpliTube costs $ 20 and a limited version is free, but unlike the others, you must buy separate versions for the iPhone and iPad.

You can try iShred Live with just an iPhone headset. The microphone picks up sound of guitar and plays the song with a sound effect.

This is especially useful for acoustic guitarists who usually cannot connect their instrument. But for those with electric guitars acoustic or electric hybrid, the best results with these applications when you connect the guitar to the iPhone, using hardware such as Griffin Technology GuitarConnect ($ 30 at GriffinTechnology.com) and iRig of IK Multimedia ($ 40, IKmultimedia.com).

AmpliTube AmpKit + and offer a wide range of sound effects, including the rules as distortion, wah, and delay.

Each application has important features that are missing in the other, but in General, if you want to record multitrack music from within the app, called AmpliTube is the best, while AmpKit + offers an exciting experience.

AmpKit, the free version, includes two pedals, effects of one amp, two speaker cabinets and MICS. AmpKit + includes 13 amps, effects pedals, 13 18 cabinets and eight microphones.

The app is nicely intuitive in several ways, but flawed in great respect. I needed to change the settings of AmpKit + first effects worked as did other applications. Among other things, the sound effects were clipped short and occasionally feedback was a problem.

Resolve these problems has been a bit frustrating, especially for someone unfamiliar with the language of the audio engineering. But the results were worth it. The app makes it easy to experiment, because about 60 effect sound configurations are displayed in a scrollable list easily. If you change any settings, the original is saved in a different section. For the novices of the sound-effect, in particular, this is a welcome feature.

AmpKit + offers a generous mix of tracks, and you can upload your own music in the app. But the real genius of the application is its ability to allow you to register and manage your guitar work from within the application. You can create layers effects on the so-called dry guitar tracks, and if you don't like the result, you can start fresh with the same track.

AmpliTube has less standard stomp boxes and an intuitive interface. But it has some features that are missing in AmpKit +, and offers great sound effects with no Fussing.

Free version has three stomp boxes, of AmpliTube, an amplifier, a cash and two microphones. The paid version includes 11 stomp boxes, five amplifiers and five stores. IPad app of AmpliTube operates four pedals at the same time and switch between cabinets and microphones.

Tiny buttons of the iPhone version has made it more difficult to use, more difficult, also, that the iPhone versions of concurrent applications. I could set default finger-friendly buttons, but otherwise there was no way to view all my active effects pedals on a screen.

You can add songs about AmpliTube and playing with guitar tracks embedded or backup drum tracks, for a fee. And, as with other applications, you can record a session. But unlike the others, of AmpliTube includes an eight-track recorder for $ 15, which is much more useful for professional sound compositions.

IShred Live, meanwhile, includes three effects in free version of the application and another nine that can be purchased for $ 1 or $ 2. Unlike its competitors, this app is a bargain. The interface was good, although not nearly as versatile as AmpKit +. Still, I liked the big buttons on the app, which made it easier to manipulate quickly during a song.

IShred's music player lets you cut a loop from a song on your device so that you can play, but has no demo Play-Along tracks within the application.

Other applications are joining the scene, as well as PocketAmp Lite (free), amps and cabs ($ 1) and RiotFX ($ 1).

Singers and other musicians, keyboardists will find similar applications that fit them. And judging from the products announced at the National Association of music merchants this month, a great annual exhibition, more will be coming soon.

Not only many for Android phones.

Speed dialling

Free Google goggles app is one of the coolest around Android titles. Take a picture of something and Google searches related to words, images or barcode. After a recent update, eyewear offers fast barcode recognition. And the app now solves the puzzle of Sudoku. ... Also for users of Android — at least those who send texts imprudent — is a new app, cancel SMS ($ 1). Itoffers a countdown of 10 seconds before sending, so that you can stop the text. You can also override the delay.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 21, 2011

The column of App Smart Personal Tech pages on Thursday for guitarists, described by one of these app, AmpliTube, incorrectly. In its registration section includes a so-called re-amping, allowing guitarists test various sound effects of the application on a recorded track; It is not the case that the characteristic of re-amping is missing.


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E-mail book questioning the Holocaust shakes a school

But the message is gone when wee on 02: 18: 00 on January 16, disturbed many parents who bother to read it. "You should read this book! It is rocking my world! "read the message, floating on the cover of a book. The cover was a star of David dark at the bottom, the Nazi flag between top and the title: "discussing the Holocaust: a new look on both sides."

The sender, Michael Santomauro, whose son is in third grade to 290 PS, on the Upper East Side, said Tuesday that it was not until minutes later when the two parents have responded with complaints that he realized his mistake. He intends to send the message to another group that belongs where members discuss whether the accounts of the Holocaust are exaggerated, and he apologized to parents for "total confusion".

Still, the damage has been done, and school officials and parents, many of whom are Jews, were stunned not only for e-mail, but also that there was the mother in the midst of them.

The main, Sharon Hill, called Mr. Santomauro to ask if his e-mail account may have been hijacked, or a virus had assumed control of his computer, and said what had taken place.

He then wrote to the parents of the school, saying: "e-mail can be an extremely useful tool or dangerous" and assured that "neither the school nor the PTA supports the views or opinions that may be implied by the author in this particular email".

In an interview, MS. Hill said the school was "taking this matter very seriously." For parents, wrote that she would contact the Defamation League "seek further clarity." From Tuesday, did not, but both parents had, said Ron Meier, Regional Director of the League.

He called Mr. Santomauro, 61, a "hard-core Holocaust denier who has promoted his beliefs through e-mail addresses for mass that are not always desired.

In the past, the protesters chanted "evict the Nazis" in front of his apartment building on Upper West Side. This time, said Mr. Santomauro, received threatening phone calls, and he has filed a police report.

Mr. Santomauro is Editorial Director of the American Division of thesis & dissertations Press, which publishes authors that the Holocaust under discussion, but live in countries where this is a crime. He has also published the book that was recommended in the email.

He said that he did not deny the Holocaust, but simply wanted to encourage debate. "There is no hatred coming from me," he said. "There is no reason if you question aspects of what may or may not happen or what weapon of murder was used during the Holocaust should be called an anti-Semite".

Melinda Boats-Scopaz, father of a kindergartner to beg, he said when he read the email that "came to the conclusion that this guy is a moron."

"I'm sure that the parent does not commit that once again," he said.

Noah Rosenberg contributed reporting.


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Friday, February 4, 2011

Smart app: looking for cheaper petrol, without the drive

Internet sites having few promise to find a bargain, but are only for the type of people who think buying gas before leaving the House.

Mobile apps, however, are another matter. Pull into a parking lot, just open the software and you may be able to save a buck or two on your next fill. In the course of a year, you could save enough money for a decent meal out.

Of course, this category is filled with suitable applications, if unspectacular, GasBuddy, which is free on iPhone and Android devices. But if you widen your search, you can find other products that offer the basics, only better, and other useful features.

In this regard Poynt, where both free on Apple, BlackBerry and Android devices, are the major players; They offer information in the vicinity of food, businesses and places of entertainment and service stations.

Those who are willing to pay a bit more polished navigation for Turn-by-Turn Navigator apps like AT&T or Verizon VZ Navigator also obtain local gas prices as part of the deal. But at about $ 120 a year, no deal.

Those who are worried about gas prices and nothing else will probably GasBuddy most — if you are lucky enough to live close to like-minded people.

GasBuddy on iPhone finds your location and allows you to find gas stations based on proximity and price. Sorting-by-distance will be extremely useful if you run gas in an unfamiliar place, which includes a Google map so you can find your way.

But the sorting-by-price is the most promising of this app and unfortunately, this feature often falls short because it depends on the people, using your application or go online to report prices. If anyone happens to report prices for nearby stations in approximately 24 hours stations will not appear in the list. In other words, you must start the application and hope that the city has active collaborators at least a couple of GasBuddy to help.

My town in suburban Connecticut apparently does not.

Last week I drove at our busiest street, Route 1, which has seven stations along a stretch of about 1.6 Street and parked in a BP and Sunoco, a Mobil. None of the prices of petrol stations showed up on the research of GasBuddy, nor have prices from three other stations that were within a mile of me. For good measure, the GasBuddy misidentified as Getty station BP.

The nearest station with prices was four miles away, and its price, $ 3.24 a gallon, was 2 cents higher than the BP station that was parked near a gallon.

Still, if I were in a remote area, I could use GasBuddy to tell me if the price was in line with the local market.

In the major cities of mine, GasBuddy is more useful, because the prices in the cities and around are with good attendance. If you are curious to know how would rate their city, check GasBuddy.com, which is managed by the same company that developed the application.

The price is the major snag with deluxe offers AT&T Navigator, VZ Navigator from Verizon and Sprint navigation. The services typically cost $ 10 per month, but some of the plans of Sprint all-inclusive offer this feature as a free add-on and iPhone owners can pay $ 70 a year for AT&T Navigator.

I tried quite extensively these applications, and in my experience that provide guidance generally reliable. AT&T Navigator and Sprint navigation, which are from TeleNav, are easier to use and more comprehensive than the VZ Navigator.

In my drive through the city, these applications are not find stations that offer lower prices to GasBuddy, including a Citgo station featured $ 3.23 a gallon.

Navigation applications Turn-by-Turn would suggest for those who don't want to buy a GPS navigation unit or users who qualify for the free app to Sprint. But if saving is a priority, or if you already have a GPS unit for directions, these applications makes little sense.

The smarter approach to gas-price also casual watchers would perhaps where to download, a free iPhone and Android app. Track your position and find local stores, restaurants and entertainment attractions, among other things.

Gas prices, where was adequate. It is found immediately cheap Citgo station nearby that I had seen for navigation applications Turn-by-Turn, as well as the two stations. In all three instances, where prices were a penny higher than the actual prices, but this is a mistake that I could live with.

More worrying was its listing for a Gulf station, to $ 3.23 a gallon. In fact, the cash price was $ 3.26 and the price of credit was $ 3.29.

Poynt, a competitor to where it was not complete. The application uses the GPS location to provide nearby gas prices and, too, Lists information on local restaurants and movies. But the application wasn't as refined as where. Poynt's definition of "close", for example, sometimes including routes 45 minutes away.

On my trek price of gas, Poynt lost even the stations closest to me. But it turned up an independent operator selling four miles away gas to $ 3.13 a gallon.

Wait-$ 3.13 a gallon starts to sound like a real saving. Fortunately, I did some math before exiting. Fill a 15-gallon would have saved me $ 1.50 for purchasing at a station nearby, but the unit would have burned that much gas.

Mathematics also delayed me long enough to notice that I was almost running on empty, so I pulled in BP and filled.

The small independent station is going on my list, though. If I could plan ahead even slightly and fill up there, I could save about $ 75 a year.

If only it were that kind of person.

Speed dialling

Line2, an iPhone app that lets you make cheap calls and texts, is now on Android. The service is free for the first month, then $ 10 per month. ... PBS, the app that previously existed only for iPad, now is also on the iPhone and iPod Touch devices. The app features free video full PBS shows.


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Sony is planning to release the new handheld game this year

TOKYO-Sony will begin a new handheld game device to sale by the end of the year and offer his PlayStation games on a range of portable devices, including Android Smartphone, the Japanese company of electronics and entertainment said Thursday in an attempt to keep pace with major changes in habits of gamers.

Sony is fighting to rip his way back into a market that turns from long time rivals, like Nintendo and beyond the traditional gaming world, as Apple, whose iPhone quickly became the go-to device for casual games, downloadable.

New Sony device, tentatively named "ngp" for the next generation of laptops, is equipped with a touch pad on both the front and back — a first for a gaming device — as well as organic LED screen of 5 inches, two analog sticks, motion sensors, front and rear cameras and 3 G network access.

By the end of the year, Sony will also take some PlayStation games available on mobile devices, including smartphones running Google's Android operating system, head of the company's game, Kazuo Hirai announced in Tokyo.

But Sony held by viewing your PlayStation phone, despite rumors heated and prototype photo circulating on the Internet in recent months. The company did not reveal details such as prices or specific release dates for your phone.

When it goes on sale, the NGP will face fierce competition.

In February, Nintendo plans to introduce the 3 DS, the next model in its popular line of DS in Japan. DS devices have outsold Sony's PlayStation Portable models for more than two to one: 135 million units compared to 62 million units as of September. The 3DS, capable of displaying 3D graphics without glasses, is a "one," Reggie Fils-Aime, chief executive of Nintendo for America, said earlier this month. Will go on sale in March in the United States.

But both Nintendo and Sony are against rivals maybe even bigger: low cost, casual games downloaded on the iPhone, iPod touch and Android devices, which have grown to explosive.

Mr. Hirai said the NGP is designed for players still interested in deeper, more sophisticated game, while for the new breed of more casual players would be a PlayStation phone.

"Times have changed, from an era when you had to carry around a dedicated gaming device like PlayStation Portable to play games on the go," said Mr. Hirai. "Now you can enjoy casual games on mobile phones, smartphones, tablet PC and many other portable multifunctional devices and these casual gamers are growing rapidly in number," he said. "We cannot ignore this growing market," he said.

"On the other hand, I feel that Sony's mission is to continue and expand the market for the type of game that PlayStation has built long — the kind of portable gaming device that brings the most engaging games," said Mr. Hirai.


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European Commission of two minds on purchases of Software?

Berlin — the European Commission, which last month urged Governments across the continent to develop computer systems that communicate better with one another, it intends to extend the use of Microsoft software products that the company's critics say are incompatible with other systems.

A task force of the Commission provisionally approved plans to update 36,180 office computer used by the Commission, the European Parliament and more than 45 other agencies e.u. for Windows 7 from Windows XP, the minutes of a meeting on December 15, the Working Group in Brussels which were obtained with the International Herald Tribune.

The next day, the full Commission adopted a series of guidelines, called the European interoperability framework of purchasing the software. These guidelines urged EU governments to build and maintain software interoperable systems that incorporate open source products, which are free of charge and use technology standards that are compatible with competing products.

"This is highly symbolic," said Karsten Gerloff, President of the Free Software Foundation Europe, a group based in D?sseldorf where contributors include software developers and companies like Google and Red Hat, a vendor of open source software. "The Commission shall be responsible for not only performs an organization effectiveness, but doing the right thing for Europe."

The decision could be seen as ironic given the decades-long antitrust battle with Microsoft's Commission, which is accused of improperly prevent rival to create products that could be used with Windows, the operating system that powers the vast majority of computers around the world.

Recommendation of the task force, which would extend the Commission's use of Windows for two years, would cost approximately 4.5 million, or $ 6.1 million, a year based on its current contracts. The proposal was approved pending a legal review and final budget.

Francisco Garc?a Mor?n, Director of the Directorate General for Informatics, whose Department prepared the recommendation to upgrade to Windows 7, has refused to be interviewed. Maros Sevcovic, European Commissioner for inter-institutional relations and administration, which oversees the Government purchase of software, also declined a request for comment.

Michael Mann, a spokesman for Mr. Sevcovic and Mr. Garc?a Mor?n, said the decision whether to upgrade computers to Windows 7 the Commission remained open. In response to questions submitted by the International Herald Tribune, Mr. Mann wrote that EU financial regulations will vest Mr. Garc?a Mor?n, as the authorising officer to the Commission, with the final decision on procurement of the software.

"The authorising officer to file, at this stage does not have a contract award decision," Mr. Mann wrote to the Commission's reply. The Commission has refused to comment on project status, he added, until it was taken the decision on procurement.

So did Microsoft, which provides software to the Commission through resellers.

Mr. Mann noted that the Commission's computer systems were using open source software since 2001 and already use more than 250 open source software products from companies like Red Hat, Atlassian and Balsamiq Studios. The daily operations of the Commission in Brussels run on more than 350 servers using the Linux open source operating system, he added, and Government Web sites use 850 servers running open source software.

Because the Commission integrated open source products, including proprietary software that uses open standard technology compatible with competing products, Mr. Mann said that there was no conflict between the pending Commission recommendation on desktop software and the objectives of the recently approved Framework interoperability.

"Until now not major projects (and most non-critical projects, especially cross-border and/or those involving Member States) have been discontinued or hampered by the failure of the Commission to honour its commitment to technical standards," Mr. Mann wrote.

The discussion technical Arcana belies a commercial battle of multimillion-euro between Microsoft and a number of open source software, many would-be rivals of their smaller competitors but also several major global technology companies like Google, Red Hat, Oracle, and International Business Machines.

Google and Red Hat give away software over open source licenses, including desktop applications, as part of broader business strategies. Oracle and IBM, install, maintain and update your open source software for businesses and institutions with their own proprietary software. Last January, Oracle has bought Sun Microsystems acquired and OpenOffice, an open source desktop application that is a rival of suite of Microsoft Office applications.

Besides being a role model for Governments, the European Commission is one of the largest purchasers of software on the continent.


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For the funeral too far, bereavement collection on the Web

It is no surprise that the death of celebrities such as Michael Jackson, or honored as political figures of the United States diplomat Richard Holbrooke, are promoted as an international Web events. So, too, was the memorial service for six people killed 8 January in Tucson, which had thousands of spectators on the Web.

But now the funerals of once-private and memorials of less-noted citizens online are also underway.

Several software companies have created easy to use programs to help meet the funeral for the victims ' families. FuneralOne a one-stop shop for online memorials is based in St Clair, Michigan, has seen the number of funeral offering that Webcast increase 1053 in 2010, from 126 in 2008 (also sells Digital DVD giveaway).

During the same period, event by wire, a competitor in Half Moon Bay, California, has watched the number of funeral services, streaming live jump from 80 to 300. And this month, the Houston International Service Corporation, which owns 2000 funeral and cemeteries, including the venerable Funeral Chapel of the Frank e. Campbell on Manhattan's Upper East Side, said that he was conducting a pilot Webcasting program 16 of his funeral.

Travel to funeral was once an important family of ritual, but with increasing secularism and an increasingly mobile population disconnected from the original Hometowns, watching an online funeral can seem better not to go to a funeral at all. Social media, too, have redesigned the municipal boundaries of what is acceptable when their parents, siblings, friends and acquaintances.

"We are in a society that YouTube now," said h. Joseph Joachim IV, founder of FuneralOne. "People who live more than ever, and this reflects that."

Some funeral streaming Web reflect the following major collections from individuals. 11 January, more than 7,000 people watched the funeral of Santa Ana, California, Debbie Friedman, an iconic singer whose music combined Hebrew text with the rhythm of folk music. Has been seen on Ustream, a Web video service, with more than 20,000 on-demand viewing in the days that followed.

"We're going to look at a couple of minutes, but ended up look almost the entire thing," said Noa Kushner, Rabbi of San Anselmo, California and an avid music MS. Friedman, who watched the service with a friend in his Office. "I was moved as well."

After Stefanie Spielman, a breast cancer activist and wife of the popular National Football League player Chris Spielman, died in 2009, the Spielmans wanted a private ceremony, attended by 900 friends and family, said Lajos Szab?, Chief Strategy Officer's funeral and cremation service Schoedinger in Columbus, Ohio, who organized the funeral. But they also host members of the public, who wanted to support the family in his pain. Streaming live and published on-line, funeral of MS. Spielman was seen 4,663 times by 2.942 visitors since November 2009, according to FuneralOne.

Other webcasts are more obscure, but no less appreciated. Two weeks ago, a friend of Ronald Rich, a volunteer firefighter in Wallace, N.C., died suddenly. When Mr. Rich called the mother of his friend to say they couldn't make the eight-hour drive to the funeral because a snowstorm has threatened to close the roads, said that the mother offered to send an e-mail invitation, so that he could watch the online service. Mr. Rich said he watched the funeral: first by himself and a second time with his girlfriend.

"It was comforting to me," he said, adding that he planned to watch it again with fellow firefighters.

Technology to make the funeral online has been around for a decade, but has been slow to catch on with an industry understandably sensitive to issues of etiquette. Some funeral directors shunning funeral live streaming, because they don't want to replace the human experience with one lone digital city, said John Reed, President of the national funeral directors Association. Other funeral directors worry that if the video quality is poor, it will reflect badly on the funeral home.

And the conversation about whether a funeral online streaming can be inconvenient, especially if a family affected by bereavement is suspicious of technology. Funeral directors are conservatives, said Mr. Reed; privacy, also for the generation of Facebook, is crucial. "We don't jump on the first thing that comes along," he said.

Still, some funeral directors provide the service for free (Mr. Reed is one of them) while others charge $ 100 to $ 300. If a family wants to keep the private online service, the guests obtain a password that allows access. (Mr. Joachim said 94 percent of funerals that his company Webcast was not protected by password).


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DealBook: how Facebook could reach $ 125 billion

Signatures of Facebook’s first 200 employees on a framed poster.John g. Mabanglo/European Pressphoto AgencySignatures of first 200 employees of Facebook on a framed poster.

Now that Facebook has raised funding amounting to $ 1.5 billion round, led by Goldman Sachs, his new investors are waiting for their fortune to multiply.

While some critics remain skeptical that Facebook — which is said to have made approximately $ 2 billion in revenue last year — is worthy assessment of 50 billion dollars of turn, momentum is clearly on the side of the company.

Shares of Facebook are still soaring in the secondary market.The company's shares are trading at an implied valuation of 76 billion, according to Sharespost. For larger bulls of Facebook, the next number to contemplate is 100 billion dollars.

According to a new report by the research firm financial, which is certainly Trefis possible.

Trefis currently puts Facebook worth a modest (relatively) 45 billion dollars, but the company says there are four likely developments that could push the value of social networking to 125 billion dollars: a doubling of the ad revenue per page; page views increased by 50 percent; Facebook's share of the search market hits the 10 percent; a doubling of revenue game for each user.

The co-founder of Trefis, Cem Ozkaynak, says that Facebook is still far off the mark, but he says recent moves by the company are moving the needle on the user interaction.

"Is the introduction of more ads on its pages, changing the structure of the profile page to emphasize the photos that may lead to more page views and integrate Web search results in search results on Facebook, changes that improve the likelihood that share our scenarios on page views per user and market research are plausible," he said.

Not bad for a start-up that went from dorm room to billions of dollars funding rounds in seven years.

Have your theory?

Test the forecast on Trefis interactive Facebook graph below:


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Media decoder: Google and Mozilla to announce new Privacy features

For the list of companies that intend to offer Web users new ways to control how we collect personal data online, add two largest producers of Internet browsers.

Monday, Mozilla and Google announced the features that enable users to Firefox and Chrome browser to opt-out of line caught by third-party advertisers. The companies made their ads a few weeks after the Federal Trade Commission has published a report that supported a mechanism of "track" that will allow consumers to choose if companies could monitor their online behavior.

In a blog post from Alex Fowler, Mozilla technology and privacy officer, the company presented a proposal for the Firefox browser functionality that would be a signal of third-party advertisers and commercial websites that indicates that a user would not be tracked. The mechanism, called an HTTP header do not trace, would rely on the companies who receive the information for the user agrees not to collect data.

The approach is different from other options currently available to users that rely on cookies or lists generated by the user. In December, Microsoft announced a feature called detection for Internet Explorer 9 that would rely on lists that users create that indicate which sites they don't want to share information with.

"We believe that the approach based on header has the potential to be better for the web in the long run, because it is a clearer and more universal mechanism to opt-out cookies or blacklists," said Mr. Fowler in the blog post.

In a statement, said the President of the Federal Trade Commission, Jon Leibowitz,: "initiative of Mozilla is to be commended. It recognises that consumers want a choice about who is tracking their movements online, and is a first step towards giving consumer choice about who will have access to your data. Also reports that Do not track options are technically feasible. "

Google's approach is based on a browser extension or plug-in, called Keep My Opt-out that work with all versions of its Chrome browser. The extension would allow users to opt-out permanently monitored online by advertisers that already offer opt-out options through self-regulatory programs, such as the Alliance of digital advertising and the Network Advertising Initiative.

In a blog post from Google, the company said it would offer the code for the extension developers on an open source and that you plan to make the functionality available to other browsers in the future.

Regarding the announcement of Google, said a spokesman for F.T.C., "we are pleased that Google is involved in the process, but Mozilla and Microsoft are clearly steps forward".

In a statement, Mike Zaneis, senior vice president and general counsel for the Interactive Advertising Bureau, an organization that supports self-regulation of the sector, said that the feature of Mozilla would require companies to voluntarily recognize consumer choice and that was not yet clear how users can protect their privacy.

"The first analogy that comes to mind is that if a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound?  Well, Google has guaranteed an audience to hear the sound of the tree falling, working with established industry, "said Mr. Zaneis.


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Thursday, February 3, 2011

Google gives $ 100 million in stock and options of Schmidt

After 60 Years, a Promise Kept to Sinclair Lewis Feeding Dreams of a Better Life Mom, You’re One Tough Art CriticStuxnet what it means for the future of computer viruses.Recipe Redux: Rib Roast of Beef, 1966 what does it say a manuscript of Lincoln doctored around the 16th President of the enduring myths.John McWhorter and Benjamin Zimmer discuss the rhetoric and ritual of the State of the Union address.

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Music industry braces for the unthinkable

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La Federazione internazionale dell'industria fonografica, un gruppo di commercio con sede a Londra, ha detto la settimana scorsa che le vendite di musica in formato digitale erano salito solo il 6 per cento in tutto il mondo nel 2010, come anche il mercato globale musica aveva ridotto per cento di 8 o 9 per cento, estendendo un declino del decennale.

In ciascuno degli ultimi due anni, il tasso di aumento delle entrate digitali ha circa dimezzato. Se tale tendenza continua, digitale vendite potrebbero top a meno di 5 miliardi di dollari di quest'anno, circa un terzo del mercato globale musica ma molti miliardi di dollari in breve l'importo necessario per sostituire-andato lungo le vendite di compact disc.

"Primo decennio digitale della musica ? dietro di noi e che cosa abbiamo?" ha detto Mark Mulligan, un analista di Forrester Research. "Non un sacco di progresso".

"Siamo in una delle fasi pi? preoccupanti ancora per l'industria", ha continuato. "Come le cose ora, musica digitale ha fallito".

I quadri di musica in disaccordo, dicendo: non c'? speranza, fintanto che essi possono venire alle prese con la pirateria, che, secondo l'industria conti della Federazione per la stragrande maggioranza della musica distribuiti on-line.

Misure pi? rigorose per reprimere la copia non autorizzata sono entrata in vigore in alcuni paesi, i dirigenti nota, e come anche le autorit? di esercitare un bastone pi? pesante, stanno comparendo le carote complementari, anche sotto forma di servizi digitali innovativi.

"Continua l'ambiente stimolante, ma ci sono alcuni motivi di ottimismo," ha detto Frances Moore, direttore esecutivo della Federazione di musica.

MS Moore ha detto la recente introduzione di dure leggi contro la pirateria in Corea del Sud e in Francia, che autorizzano tagliare la connessione Internet di recidivi, ? emerso che l'applicazione pi? rigorosa potrebbe convincere gli ascoltatori a cercare alternative legali per i servizi di condivisione di file non autorizzati.

In Corea del Sud, dove music business lungo ? stato rovinato dalla pirateria, musica digitale vendite sono aumentate del 14 per cento nel primo semestre dell'anno scorso, dopo la nuova legge ? entrato in vigore nel 2009, la Federazione ha detto. Il prime conto sospensioni si ? verificato in autunno, e il gruppo ha detto che la pubblicit? che circonda la repressione dovrebbe aiutare a convertire il maggior numero di consumatori.

Max Hole, chief operating officer di Universal Music Group International, ha detto la che sua azienda, la pi? grande delle quattro grandi case discografiche, cos? ? stato incoraggiato dai segni di una svolta nella Corea del Sud che aveva deciso di iniziare ad investire nello sviluppo di nuovi atti di musica ancora una volta, dopo la sospensione delle operazioni in Corea del Sud parecchi anni fa.

Francia ha inoltre implementato un sistema cosiddetto risposta graduato. Nel sistema francese, accesso a Internet di taglio ? preceduta da diversi avvisi. Mentre le autorit? dicono che hanno inviato centinaia di migliaia di messaggi di posta elettronica al copyright sospette frodi, connessione di nessuno ancora ? stato tagliato.

Casa discografica dirigenti ha detto che erano anche incoraggiati dalla recente azione legale negli Stati Uniti a paralizzare il servizio di condivisione di file LimeWire, come pure i progressi nel Senato degli Stati Uniti di un disegno di legge per dare autorit? giudiziarie pi? potere per arrestare la condivisione di file services.

In Europa, l'industria ha dentellato vittorie legali contro altri accusati di siti di pirateria, tra cui The Pirate Bay e Mininova di complicit?.

Dirigenti industria dire essi sono incoraggiati dallo sviluppo di nuovi servizi digitali, in particolare quelli che abbracciare i principi del cloud computing. Questi servizi possono fornire quantit? illimitate di musica ai listener on demand, attraverso una variet? di dispositivi, dai telefoni cellulari ai televisori.

"La televisione ? una grande opportunit?," ha detto Thomas Hesse, capo del business digitale a Sony Music Entertainment. "Noi non abbiamo innovato nel salotto per molti anni."

Tutto il mondo, 10 milioni di persone hanno gi? firmato per abbonamento servizi online da Spotify, Rdio e Deezer, alcuni dei quali hanno attratto aggiuntive milioni di utenti con i servizi gratuiti, supportato da pubblicit?. Molti dirigenti spero che la crescita delle offerte come questi possa ridurre la dipendenza dell'industria sulle vendite delle singole tracce attraverso negozi digitali come Apple iTunes, un modello che ha suscitato poco interesse da appassionati di musica di giovani, in particolare di fuori degli Stati Uniti.


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Bits: Ripples from Splash mobile

The phone is starting to have the kind of impact on the industry that has been seen with only a few products, such as car or big kitchen. This week, in a number of corporate earnings report showed the ripple effect.

Corning said Tuesday that its quarterly profit increased 41%, partly due to increased sales of its unusually strong Gorilla glass, which is used in displays of smartphones. Gorilla glass, which is used in about 200 million mobile devices, has produced approximately 250 million dollars of revenue for Corning in 2010. James b. Flaws, chief financial officer of the company, said analysts that Gorilla glass could generate $ 1 billion in revenue this year.

Kodak has reported its earnings Wednesday morning and notice that the quarterly revenue from its digital business, which includes his camcorder, slid 25 percent a year ago. Kodak executives in part blame competition from mobile phones, which are causing serious problems in the market for low-end point-and-shoot digital cameras, the kind that makes Kodak.

Investors are expecting revenues of Verizon Wireless to pop, once the iPhone built for that carrier goes on sale. They are also looking to see the impact that Smartphones, iPhone, in particular, will have on Qualcomm chips, that provides the radio for the iPhone at Verizon. Stock of Qualcomm is 34 percent from last fall, when the market recognized that it was a supplier of iPhone criticism.


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Verizon earnings fall short of expectations, but users are strong Wireless growth

The company's net income was $ 2.64 billion, or 93 cents a share, compared to $ 617 million, or 22 cents, a year before. The increase was largely the result of adjustments to the value of retirement and pension plans of the company. Without them, would have been earnings 54 cents a share, one cent below the average of analysts ' forecasts.

Income fell 2.6% to 26.4 billion, from 27.1 billion the previous year, mainly due to the decrease in revenue from voice services.

Verizon has fallen behind its peers in moving towards mobile devices and wireless data services to profit, said Harry Wang, Director of mobile search in Parks Associates, a research organization. But he said that seemed to have picked up the pace in the fourth quarter.

"Verizon has been adjusting its business and deals in recent years to respond to the changing market," said Mr. Wang. "This dynamic is captured in these results more so than ever."

Verizon Wireless, a venture with Vodafone in the UK, reported a sharp increase in subscribers, adding 872,000 contract customers in the quarter. Although it is less new subscribers were added in the fourth quarter of last year, there were so many analysts expected.

Nearly 75% of new subscribers acquired Smartphone company, mainly because of its strong portfolio of elegant new handsets powered by Android, the Google operating system.

Smartphone users represent about a quarter of the Verizon Wireless contract subscriber base. That is a smaller share than its rivals, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile, which each pass close to 40 percent, said Mr. Wang.

In a presentation for analysts and investors, Lowell McAdam, Verizon's chief operating officer, said that the company expects half its mobile customers to your smartphone by year end.

"May be even higher," he said. "We are thrilled to revive a vibrant cycle in this area of growth".

Mr. McAdam says Verizon would concentrate on the promotion of its fourth-generation wireless network, which uses a technology known as LTE market, and would strongly different mobile devices that can run on it.

"We're going to get that penetration up, he will obtain profitability," said Mr. McAdam.

Verizon executives said that the appetite for devices compatible with LTE had already risen since it started last year with the introduction of the network.

More than 65,000 LTE laptop modem were sold in their first month on the market, he said. The initial response to tablet computers and their accompanying data plans has been positive, with more than 86,000 IPAD and Samsung Galaxy cards sold in the quarter, he said. During the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this month, Verizon demonstrated by a dozen of smartphones and tablets can run on the new network.

For the quarter, revenues increased wireless almost 6%, 6.3 billion, compared to the previous year. Wireless data revenues, increased by 25 percent, accounted for more than 5 billion of the total wireless revenues, Verizon said.

Mr. McAdam expected data consumption would increase more than 40 times before the end of the Decade.

Verizon stock rose 55 cents to $ 35.79 after the announcement of earnings.

The quarter can offer a preview of greatest interest in Verizon announced two weeks ago that it would soon begin offering a version of the iPhone running on your network.

The company has refused to provide a baseline specification for how the release of iPhone affect revenues and profitability. But he said it would begin offering various incentives, including trade-in options and unlimited data plans for the device, to entice existing customers to upgrade and attract customers from rival carriers. It warned that can eliminate the unlimited data plans at some point.

Verizon said it expects to sell iPhone as ben 11 million next year, but wouldn't the Bank entirely on a partnership with Apple to help buoy the company.

"We worked very hard to get here so we would have a balanced approach," said Ivan Seidenberg, chairman and chief executive of Verizon. "We have always said we will not be a business-focused, and we will certainly be one-focused device."


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Sony handheld to take on the Nintendo DS, Smartphone

TOKYO (Reuters)-Sony Corp is set to launch a frontal challenge for Nintendo Co Ltd and Apple Inc with a new handheld gaming device that analysts expect largely to be unveiled at an event in Tokyo on Thursday.

Consumer electronics giant has refused to comment on the agenda for the event, which is the same day that Nintendo is expected to report a slide in quarterly profit. Nintendo next month launches its 3D version of its popular DS model.

With tablets eat in the market for handheld gaming devices and Smartphones, Sony and Nintendo desperately need a blockbuster product to increase sales and profits.

Nintendo DS sold nearly 136 million units until September. Sony PSP has sold approximately 61 million.

New Sony includes a touch panel and wireless 3 G connectivity, the first games in a portable device, Japan's Nikkei business daily said this week. It added that the set-up 3 G would be for the data, it calls.

Blog reports say that the device will be as powerful as the PlayStation 3 console.

"From our point of view it is important how many they can sell," said Mizuho investors securities analyst Nobuo Kurahashi. "A lot is depends on the software titles that offer".

He noticed a change in apparent relief between companies of games. "The Nintendo 3DS seems to have changed in the area of serious games that may not be reproduced on a smartphone."

The next generation PSP may be closely related to a PlayStation phone that can be in the works.

If not announced this week the PlayStation phone may be unveiled on February 13, at an event in Barcelona, Sony Ericsson.

Nintendo is expected to report a decline in the percentage close to 40 for October-December profit as sales of the DS and compatible software 3D fade before the launch.

Sony is next week should register a drop in profits for the quarter October-December, impressed by his business TV struggling.

(Editing by Gangadhar Daga and David Hulmes)


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Higher income but tepid growth at Yahoo

Carol a. Bartz, who joined Yahoo as chief executive two years ago, has sought to revive growth after several years of slow results and an inability to capitalize on the rise of social networking, now dominated by Facebook.

She has cut costs, largely through a series of layoffs, while Google, for example, added employees. She has been outsourcing plans to eliminate unsuccessful products, including the Delicious bookmarking service and services.

His strategy was to concentrate on the strengths of Yahoo, which include editorial content, display advertising and online communications such as e-mail. Still says that it will take time before Yahoo shows signs of great progress. The earnings report seemed to support this point of view.

Display advertising banner and other ads — graphics — was a bright spot. But a first quarter revenue forecast that was below expectations sent shares down in business analysts to appreciate.

Yahoo reported that net income in the fourth quarter, which ended in December, doubled to $ 312 million, or 24 cents a share compared with the year-ago quarter.

The company said revenue fell 12 percent to $ 1.53 billion. Practically all the decline came from the sale of the career site Listings and changes to Yahoo's search activity.

Income was slightly above the correct income of 26 cents a share, beating the 22 cents a share that was expected by analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters. Excluding payments to advertising partners, revenue was 1.21 billion, or modestly more than 1.19 billion that analysts had expected.

Display advertising increased 14 percent to $ 635 million.

In a conference call with analysts after the report was published, Yahoo executives repeatedly to what is described as positive momentum of the company and talked about their trust that Yahoo will turn corner in several important areas during the second half of this year. Stressed the earnings growth and cast of the decreasing revenue as a natural consequence of their strategy.

"We have just completed a quarter and the year very encouraging for Yahoo," MS. Bartz said in the call. She went on to say that "we're making progress evident on our plan."

The estimated revenue for the first quarter was $ 1.02 billion to $ 1.08 billion, compared to analysts ' expectations of 1.13 billion. In the market appreciates, shares dropped by more than 2 percent, to $ 15.64.

Youssef h. Sharks, an analyst at Jefferies & co., said that he was still waiting for Yahoo to show some signs of progress. Cutting costs is well said, but what investors really want is for society to restore growth, and that management will be intense pressure to do so this year, they have promised.

"Growth, is a show-me story," said Mr. sharks. "The jury is still out on this."

As a sign of cost reduction of MS. Bartz, Yahoo, which is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, said Tuesday that would have eliminated 1 percent of its workforce, or approximately 140 jobs, especially in marketing. Following cuts last month another 600 jobs, most of them within the product group.

Yahoo layoffs contrast sharply with Google, which said Tuesday that it would add more than 6,000 employees this year. Although Yahoo said it will continue to hire in some areas, it is surprising disconnect between companies and their trajectories.

Not only is Google taking, is growing rapidly, reporting a rise of 26% in fourth quarter revenue last week.

Yahoo has bet a large portion of its revival on its research in partnership with Microsoft, which has taken over its search engine and associated advertising in North America. The switch in Europe and Asia will take place this year.

But MS. Bartz suggested that there are still problems to be worked out in terms of financial benefits of the partnership research. Important measurements of its financial performance, including revenue on research, have been less than what was hoped for during the quarter, although he expressed confidence in an improvement in the second half of the year.


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For files, a lot of space in the cloud

Called file, hosting services, these online systems allow documents, images and files to be stored on the server, rather than on a PC. Most of these services to store a local copy on your PC or Mac, and many offer a special folder on the computer that will reflect the selected files on multiple computers. Other services are just the Internet and allows you to upload and share files with multiple users in a few minutes without resorting to deleting CD by mail.

But, as these services are practically useful for work or home? First, they are a great way to backup your important files off-site. They also regularly used to share files with friends, family and colleagues. For example, new parents can upload a high-resolution photo of the child to show the grandparents and workers can exchange artwork and documents that are used frequently with their colleagues.

The services also allow you to share a public link to the document with anyone or even the entire folder, which will appear as an exact duplicate on the desktop of another person.

Most services offer a few gigabytes of free memory; to host a few thousand photographs, with enough space for thousands of Word documents. And many allow users to perform automatic backups of important files for free.

Here is a look at a few popular services.

DROPBOX How many file sharing services, Dropbox creates a folder on your computer that contains all of your mirrored data. But behind the scenes, the service has a component that allows you to share and distribute a set of files and folders, as well as a version control system that keeps the previous copies of selected files over time, which means you can recover previous versions of these documents.

Dropbox has a simple Web interface and displays it in a computer as a folder named "dropbox". Drag the files into the folder and the service automatically sends them for custody in the cloud. Because these folders are also available through a Web interface, files can be moved, copied and deleted even when they are away from a home PC.

The service allows you to automatically upload any files that you changed in your Dropbox folder, provided there is an Internet connection.

The service offers two gigabytes of memory free, 50 gigabytes for $ 10 per month and 100 gigabytes for $ 20 per month.

SUGARSYNC SugarSync has some interesting features, including a "synchronization by email" system that allows you to upload a file via e-mail, a useful trick for archiving photos or documents that others have posted.

SugarSync allows you to store special folders on all computers and enter into these folders when you are connected to the Internet. SugarSync also has a "magic suitcase" that keeps copies of files synced between devices. SugarSync has a dedicated iPhone app for viewing and sharing files, how does the Dropbox.

SugarSync costs $ 5 per month for 30 GB of storage and up to 40 dollars a month to 500 gigabytes, enough to store 40,000 pictures. The largest accounts allow you to backup almost completed on your home computer or laptop, although the smallest five-gigabyte, which is free, offers enough space for some essential elements.

For those who have less burdensome storage needs, there are also single use file sharing services that allow files to be stored temporarily in the cloud.

CRATE Cash is a new service that allows a user to simply drag a file to an icon to load it cash stylized. A moment later, it spits out a unique link that can be shared with friends and family. For example, to upload an archive of family photos or a recipe and put it in the cloud for both 30 minutes anonymously, or permanently after registration. This is a quick way to share one or two files without the fuss of creating an account or paying a monthly fee.

YOUSENDIT For business users, YouSendIt is a free service that lets you upload and send files to others via e-mail. Companies of two to 10 employees are charged $ 15 per month to send files of up to two gigabytes. Larger plans, including up to 12 GB of storage for each user, are available.

YouSendIt offers a free trial service for regular users, that someone uploads a file and identify some e-mail recipients. Recipients get an email with a link where the file can be downloaded instantly. How to Crate, YouSendIt offers one-shot share one or two files at once.

ZUMODRIVE This service provides users with remote access for music and photos, no matter the device, including smartphones like the iPhone and BlackBerry. ZumoDrive, like other services, also lets you share folders with multiple devices.

Real value of ZumoDrive arrives in whole music library sharing, you can listen to your Mp3s on the go. Music uploaded to the service may be played on almost any device that supports playback of MP3. You can also browse and share photos stored on the main PC over the Internet. And ZumoDrive lets you share individual files or folders with e-mail recipients and also post links to certain files on a blog or Twitter.

Dragging files out of a desktop in the cloud runs a few risks, including the possibility that the storage provider will go out of business or suffer a huge mistake. However, given the status of backup multiple PCs, it may be worth that are likely to be dependent on the kindness of strangers when it comes to data sharing and storage.


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Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Chinese company file suit to block sale of units of Motorola

SHANGHAI — China Telecommunications Contracts that giant Huawei Technologies has filed a lawsuit seeking to prevent the completion of the sale of its wireless network Division of Nokia Siemens Networks due to a dispute about Motorola technology.

Huawei, long-time partner of Motorola, said in a suit filed Monday in U.s. District Court in Illinois that it did not object to Motorola's decision to sell its unit of Nokia Siemens but was worried that the equipment and technology Motorola sold including technologies developed by Huawei. Motorola's sales of these technologies, said Huawei, would lead to theft of trade secrets, copyright infringement and breach of contract.

Last year, Nokia Siemens Networks agreed to acquire elements of Motorola wireless network infrastructure for $ 1.2 billion in cash.

Monday delays, the judge ordered Motorola does not disclose the confidential information for Huawei Nokia Siemens.

In its lawsuit, Huawei has said that for over a decade has provided Motorola with Huawei and networking products that Motorola had sold the goods under its own brand. Huawei has said that these products and technologies are also sold by Huawei and account for billions of dollars in annual revenue for the company.

Motorola said in a statement Tuesday that he believed that the lawsuit was without merit and that it aims to complete the sale early in 2011, pending the approval of the anti-trust authorities.

But the complaint by the Chinese company arrives after Motorola presented its lawsuit in Federal Court last year, Huawei accusing of stealing the designs of Motorola. Motorola said that Huawei took the designs with the help of a group of Chinese-born Motorola engineers.

The battle comes at a time when Huawei, one of the largest and best-known of China is gaining market share in the world and are seeking to enter the market of the United States with telecommunications equipment.

Huawei already has a strong presence in Europe and second telecom equipment supplier in the world behind Ericsson of Sweden. But the company has struggled with accusations he stole some technology by Western companies and is connected to the Chinese military. The company has strongly denied the allegations and insists that it is a private company.


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Gadgetwise: Found use for the iPhone: sleep aid

Jenna Wortham's Digital Diary

A couple of nights ago, I found myself tossing and turning in bed for hours, not yet my mind and settle down for the night. I discussed reading a book, watch TV or flipping open my laptop to find a soothing music to help inaugurate the relief sweet sleep.

Instead, I reached for my iPhone.

After a quick search through the App Store, I found a bevy of applications that has promised to help lull me to sleep.

The first is that I chose was the free version of white noise. Offers an extensive catalog of sound solution, including crashing waves Beach, drumming of rain, the dull hum of a ceiling fan, chirping crickets and also the clanking of a moving train. The app has a convenient timer and an alarm so that users can schedule when their night sounds should disappear and when they should be awake the next morning.

That worked for a couple of nights; so I was back to square one.

Besides nonstop yawns at dinner, my friend Kelly suggested that I try a bunch of applications from Pzizz, a software company that has been making audio tracks for insomniacs for years.

That night, nestled under my covers, download the full version of Pzizz sleep for $ 4.99 and turned it on.

Immediately, a disembodied voice continuing across the room, gently urging me to relax and clear my mind. The background environment sounds like sweet strings chimed and sounds windlike whistled through the phone. Like white noise, lets you control how long Pzizz sleep to leave the sound, play and set an alert for the next day. In addition, the application allows you to raise and lower the volume of atmospheric music and voice tracks, depending on what is most reassuring. I was out before 20 minutes had passed and haven't looked back since.

My smartphone has supplanted already my alarm clock, the GPS unit and the digital camera. I thought that was the extent of it, but it seems like it is taking on another role: sleep machine.

Readers, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Is your smartphone the Swiss army knife of digital age? Slowly replaces the standalone appliances and devices? If Yes, which ones? You're still finding new uses for your phone? If so, what are they?


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Lawmakers States pay attention to the dangers of distracted pedestrians

That is the theory of various lawmakers pushing the latest generation of law treat as devices such as iPods and mobile phones affect traffic safety. The ubiquity of interactive devices has propelled the science of distraction — and now efforts to legislate against it — from the machine and the exercise routine.

In New York, a Bill is pending in the Transport Committee of the legislature that would prohibit the use of mobile phones, iPod, or other electronic devices during the crossing of roads — runners and other exercisers included. Pending legislation in Oregon would limit cyclists from using cell phones and music players, and a Virginia Bill would maintain those drivers from using a "portable communication device".

California State Senator Joe Simitian, who led a fight effectively ban motorists from sending text messages and the use of mobile phones, has reintroduced a bill that failed last year to beautiful cyclists $ 20 for multitasking.

"The big thing was distracted driving, but now it is the movement in other ways technology can distract, everyday things," said Anne Teigen, a political expert for the National Conference of State legislatures, tracking legislative developments.

Tuesday, exercising in Central Park, Marie Wickham, 56, said he understood what all the fuss was about, "you are zigging, they are lined up, don't know what is around them. Can certainly be dangerous. "

But MS Wickham added that it was opposed to any prohibition on such devices. "I think that is a violation of personal rights," he said. "At some point, we need to take responsibility for our stupidity."

Pedestrian fatalities is slightly increased for the first time in four years during the first half of 2010, according to a report released last week by the Governors Highway Safety Association, an organization based in Washington, which represents the security agencies of the State Highway.

Between States, Arizona and Florida had the largest increase in pedestrian fatalities, followed by North Carolina, Oregon and Oklahoma. Nationally, victims of pedestrian traffic had dropped to 4.063 in 2009 by 4,888 in 2005, said the report.

"One of the reasons we believe that the trend may be turning negative because of distracted pedestrians," said Jonathan Adkins, spokesperson of the security group.

The Bill was proposed in New York State Senator Carl Kruger, a Democrat of Brooklyn, which grew alarmed by the amount of distraction that he sees on the streets in his neighborhood and the city of New York. Since September, Mr. Kruger wrote in the Bill, three pedestrians were killed and one was wounded during the crossing of the streets and listen to music through headphones.

"We are taught by Calzificio to look in both directions, listen, listen, and then pass through," he said. "You can run any of these functions if you are engaged in a sort of wired activities."

HAL Pashler, Professor of cognitive science at the University of California, San Diego, said that listening to sound through two headsets create a very powerful type of "auditory masking" drowning external sounds. This masking is not only directly in the ear, even accidentally, in the sense that sound floods the brain, even when a person tries to listen to something — say, traffic.

"It's even more overwhelming type muiltitasking that we normally costs," said Mr. Pashler.

As written, the proposal of Mr. Kruger, which was introduced in 2007, would apply only to cities with populations greater than or equal to one million. But Mr. Kruger wants to expand the Bill to cover even small towns. Violators would face a civil citation and a $ 100.

"This is not government interference," he said. "This is more like saying," you're doing something that might be harmful to yourself and others around you. ' ”

But some outdoor exercisers that rely on music for a boost see proposals as little more than a distraction for public safety officers. "Chasing down the runner who has his headphones instead of chasing down the driver who was at the local pub, sounds like you're trying to collect the low-hanging fruit," said John Wiant, 43, a racer from Newport Beach, California

In Arkansas, an avalanche of criticism on Tuesday brought a lawmaker to withdraw a proposal that would have banned pedestrians wearing headphones in both ears. Other legislators have tried to strike a balance between public safety and the seriousness of the crime.

In California, Mr. Simitian offers $ 20 fine on cyclists who send text messages and a $ 30 increase worth $ 20 to do the same task while driving a car, a difference that he said reflects the risk related to behavior poses to others.

"At some point," he said, "you'll just rely on the good judgment of the people as they go through their daily lives."

Mr. Simitian added that he believed that efforts to legislate against distraction out of the car could decrease the severity of the campaigns fought and laws meant to curb distracted driving.

"There's a problem out there with the distracted pedestrians? I would be the first to admit it, "he said. But, he added, "it is appropriate to distinguish between 4,000 pounds of steel and glass that you and a pawn which might also put at risk but probably less of a risk poses to the public in General."

Andrew Keh, Ian Lovett and Evin Demirel contributed reporting.


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Gadgetwise: Q. & A.: Finding Missing Outlook Reminders

My reminders in Outlook 2007 stopped working when I'm sitting there using the program. I have already checked in options to make sure the reminder box is enabled and set to display, but still nothing. Guide?

Microsoft Outlook reminder function uses the window screen to alert you of tasks and appointments are scheduled in the calendar. If reminders are still saved in the same folder that you always have (usually the primary Calendar or task folders) before they stopped working, you may have a corrupt or damaged file in the folder reminders.

Quit Outlook and go to the Windows Start menu. If you have the option of Start menu run box, select it, type outlook/cleanreminders, and press the Enter key or click the OK button. If you don't own on the Run dialog box, your Start menu, type "run" in the search box, type outlook/cleanreminders, open it in the box and click OK.

If Outlook still refusing to display the reminder, Microsoft recommends that you return to the Run dialog box and typing in outlook/ResetFolders and then pressing the Enter key or the OK button. The company has more information about the problem online.


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N.F.L. Labor struggle, Battlefield moves Online

Hours later, DeMaurice Smith, Executive Director of the Union, the players responded on Twitter that he would work to 68 cents, if an agreement was reached with the Super Bowl.

The volley Goodell-Smith was the last of a dispute that is the first in the history of sports to be played extensively on digital turf. With the current agreement between the League and the Union that expires on 3 March, the two parties are affected, counter and needling each other on Twitter, Facebook and websites dedicated to can block. Their dueling online was designed partly to woo fans to their corners.

"Fans to buy tickets, purchase products, fans fill stadiums and may have an influence on politicians," Paul Hicks, executive vice president of the League of communications and government relations, said in an interview. "I think that the owners and players are highly sensitive to fan opinion."

Hicks is a central figure in the strategy for disseminating information more quickly, as the recent letter of Goodell, which was emailed to five million supporters and explained the collective bargaining position of the League.

"You need to sell your idea and use every opportunity that you can at a speed that it is not usually normal in an enterprise environment," said Hicks. "We have a mindset of campaign. We want our suggestions of market and how we want the game to be in the future. "

News conferences used to be the main arena of leagues and trade unions to argue their cases and respond to what the other side was saying.

Now a retort is a click away. Both the League and the Union hopes for a wide and back on Twitter between like-minded users.

On January 21st, the League took to Twitter to highlight a poll that said 99 percent of those surveyed opposed Congressional involvement in labor talks stalled. In her answers, George Atallah, Assistant Executive Director of the Union, whose role is similar to Hicks s, wrote, "Those are Kim Jong-il 's," referring to the North Korean leader.

Atallah and Hicks play their roles in different ways. Hicks, 54, is rarely mentioned, unlike its predecessor, Joe Browne and don't use Twitter, although members of his staff. Atallah, 32, has become a public personality due to labor dispute; He uses Twitter regularly and frequently is interviewed.

"I have a responsibility to make sure that side players is portrayed accurately and the media to be credible source of information," said Atallah, who has a support staff of six. "Commitment leads to Player commitment of fan".

The Union has asked supporters to lobby Congress, sign petitions and combine with players ' Let us play day "earlier this month to claim that there is no block.

Atallah is Hicks had previously worked in public relations firms. Atallah was hired by Smith in 2009 by Qorvis Communications. Hicks arrived at the summer League from Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, taking a position that traditionally went to an insider of the League, or a former sportswriter.

"Paul was here for five months," said Browne, now a senior adviser, "Goodell and there are very few half-truths that the Union has put out that we have not answered."

Doug Allen, a former official of the players Union, said that in 2006, when there were talks strained that led to the extension of the labor agreement, the Union had a modest Web site.

"We've done a little, but without social media," he said. Now, with both sides better equipped (only the Union uses Facebook), he added, "alters the atmosphere, but I'm not sure that will change the leverage on both sides. It would be, if you were making a side and the other was not. "

In fact, the digital and back covers, 140 characters at a time, the gap that exists behind closed doors between negotiators over revenue sharing (the League wants to share less); the season 18-game proposal and its impact on the health of players with two extra games; the urgency (or absence) of talks and rejection of the League to leave the Union look at her books.

"A while ago, ' Atallah, said," the N.F.L. did some post about there not being enough meetings — we don't want to meet — and there happened to be in a meeting at the time. So tweeted. "

Every day, online exchanges and what competitive may appear either substantial or silly. Regardless, there is a sense that the League and the Union have learned from politics and the need to respond to the positions of their opponent.

NFLLabor.com Web site of the League on Wednesday offered a glimpse of its strategy. A press call of Goodell Tuesday, a fan of Denver Broncos and blogger; another post cited Falcons owner Arthur Blank, the, as saying that the League is "ready to do whatever it takes" to reach a new agreement, but that the Union should "step up with the same sense of urgency."

A section of the Web site of Union block has a clock counting down to the date of expiry of the agreement, and links to articles and posts to Twitter that favor her position.

Successful strategies online, however, cannot be easily measured. William b. Gould IV, Professor of law at Stanford University and a former President of the National Labor Relations Board, said that the League and the MTFs view online about the issues that are easily comprehensible to football fans.

"You're trumpeting their positions to the public," he said. "But my sense is that this stuff does not fundamentally change things in disputes that are difficult to solve."


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Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Bits: Tech Talk Podcast: Carriers Tackle Distracted Driving

You know that driving while talking, texting or otherwise engaging with gadget can be dangerous, but a lot of people still do it. Now the cell carriers are starting to offer ways to turn off automatically when phones are in moving vehicles. Bettina Edelstein talks to Matt Richtel, a reporter for the times that he has written extensively on distracted driving, how does this nascent technology and why carriers are embracing it. Due to changes in business cell, Mr. Richtel says, carriers eagerly competing to offer new services for which they can charge monthly fees.

How to improve cell phone cameras, an array of new tools have become available for those who like to shoot on the go. J.D. Biersdorfer speaks with Don Donofrio's Department of Technology News times HDR photography on iPhone and apps that allow you to optimize images.

And Pedro Rafael Rosado extracts the mobile digital recorder from blue microphones Mikey, a device that plugs into your iPod and iPhone older, wheel 320 degrees and record in stereo. But as Mr. Rosado, notes does not work with the iPhone later-model 4. The Mikey retails for about $ 80.

News roundup by MS. Biersdorfer includes research at the North Carolina State University on a new form of computer memory; Verizon iPhone unlimited data plan; a tracking cookie opt-out tool for Google Chrome browser; growth in the use of square position reporting service; and a new push of advertising from Facebook that can put ads in your friends news feed. His technical tip of the week: keyboard shortcuts to quickly find the information of the file or folder — property on a PC, get info on the Mac.

For more information about shows and links to topics that were discussed, go to page Tech Talk.

You can download the show by subscription from the New York Times podcast page or directly from iTunes.


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RadioShack struggling says Chief will depart

RadioShack has struggled with competition from online retailers such as Amazon.com and largest electronics retailers like Best Buy. It resulted in Mr. day, a former investment banker who helped pull Kmart out of bankruptcy in 2006 to help turn around the results.

Since then, the company has shifted its attention to smartphones, wireless plans and mobile kiosks with some success. But Monday, said "disappointing" from its activity of T-Mobile and a change in sales towards the bottom edge handsets bad results in the fourth quarter. Smartphones like the iPhone, RadioShack started recently achievement, have a bottom margin of any other product.

The company had also increased costs as it invested in kiosks in target stores.

RadioShack began to open stalls, offering wireless products, target stores and mobile phones last year. Plan to have them in most target stores from mid-2011.

RadioShack said that Mr. Day, 57, is retiring as President, CEO and Director as its annual meeting of shareholders on May 16th.

Mr. day's duties will be divided. James f. Gooch, 43, the chief financial officer, will become President and chief executive. Mr. Gooch was appointed President effective immediately. He will assume the position of Executive Director at the time of retirement of Mr. day

Daniel r. Feehan becomes nonexecutive Chairman of the Board of Directors. He has been a Director since 2003 and is currently President and chief executive of America Cash International.

RadioShack announced preliminary fourth earn 50-54 cents a share, in the 67 cents expected by analysts.

Stocks of RadioShack, which is headquartered in Fort Worth, fell to $ 1.00 to close at $ 15.62 a share.


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For new social networks, sharing can be more targeted

Some of these networks take advantage of the massive audience of Facebook or Twitter to allow users to reach the maximum number of friends. But if you are worried about potential privacy holes to Facebook and want to avoid them, there is a network that, too.

INSTAGRAMInstagram, a photo sharing network based on a free app for Apple iPhone, is the breakout of specialty social networks. The service, which was introduced in October, says that more than one million users have already joined.

Instagram's secret weapon is its built-in photo filters, edit images before uploading them. Some effects are banal, but some — like the Early Bird inspired sepia or toaster soft-color — miracles to remove often harsh lighting and strident colors photo phone. With the help of filters, images can look better than those uploaded to other social sites like Facebook.

Davin Bentti, software engineer in Atlanta, uses Instagram to control where he posts photos.

"The Instagram allows me to share photos on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Posterous, Tumblr, Foursquare," he said. "When I take a photo, I can put it anywhere in the world without having to think much about it. But I can also put it where I want to go. "

For example, said Mr. Bentti, missed Twitter when sending a recent photo of her dog, because his Twitter followers are mostly professional colleagues.

To get started, download the free Instagram iPhone app and sign up for an account. If you own an Android phone, be patient; an app for this operating system is in the works, the company said.

To find friends to share your photos with, launch the application and select the profile option at the bottom right of your screen. Instagram offers several ways to find people: access to Facebook or Twitter to view lists of your friends have already signed with Instagram; search your phone's contact list to match e-mail addresses with existing users; send invitations to those in your contact list who have not yet joined; Search the database of Instagram users and usernames; Browse the list of users suggested that the company has deemed worthy to their photos.

"We don't see ourselves as an alternative" at Facebook, said Kevin Systrom, Director of Instagram. "We see ourselves as a complement, to allow sharing across multiple networks, all at once."

Path Path, a photo and video sharing network, also sees itself as an accessory to Facebook; users can access Facebook to find the location of users to share with. But the location limits the sharing of up to 50 friends, rather than with all that ye know. And it is not possible to post photos to Facebook itself. Your friends should check their location app or website location to see images.

Path does not connect to Twitter or other networks.

The idea, said Dave Morin, Executive Director of the path, is to make sharing photos more personal. Here's how Laurie Percival, Los Angeles, is used to share the picture of Charlotte, the daughter of the newborn, with only eight people.

"It seems more private Location," he said. "I use it to not share moments with Charlotte publicly."

Instagram and route allow focus on recruitment and send a photo, without the distractions of status updates, Twitter postings or photographer information not seen on other social networks. Both apps to minimize the number of options and buttons on the screen.

Photographers who use both services say that you should remember that the photos will probably appear on relatively small iPhone screen, and so it is better to follow tight and headshots. With long-distance shots, individual persons or objects of interest, as a sign of fun, it will be difficult to see.


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Dealing with Assange and secrets that has paid

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Artwork by Jenny Morgan (left) and Daniel Gordon (right)

This past June, Alan Rusbridger, the editor of The Guardian, phoned me and asked, mysteriously, whether I had any idea how to arrange a secure communication. Not really, I confessed. The Times doesn’t have encrypted phone lines, or a Cone of Silence. Well then, he said, he would try to speak circumspectly. In a roundabout way, he laid out an unusual proposition: an organization called WikiLeaks, a secretive cadre of antisecrecy vigilantes, had come into possession of a substantial amount of classified United States government communications. WikiLeaks’s leader, Julian Assange, an eccentric former computer hacker of Australian birth and no fixed residence, offered The Guardian half a million military dispatches from the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq. There might be more after that, including an immense bundle of confidential diplomatic cables. The Guardian suggested — to increase the impact as well as to share the labor of handling such a trove — that The New York Times be invited to share this exclusive bounty. The source agreed. Was I interested?

An archive of classified military documents offers views of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A cache of diplomatic cables provides a chronicle of the United States’ relations with the world.

I was interested.

The adventure that ensued over the next six months combined the cloak-and-dagger intrigue of handling a vast secret archive with the more mundane feat of sorting, searching and understanding a mountain of data. As if that were not complicated enough, the project also entailed a source who was elusive, manipulative and volatile (and ultimately openly hostile to The Times and The Guardian); an international cast of journalists; company lawyers committed to keeping us within the bounds of the law; and an array of government officials who sometimes seemed as if they couldn’t decide whether they wanted to engage us or arrest us. By the end of the year, the story of this wholesale security breach had outgrown the story of the actual contents of the secret documents and generated much breathless speculation that something — journalism, diplomacy, life as we know it — had profoundly changed forever.

Soon after Rusbridger’s call, we sent Eric Schmitt, from our Washington bureau, to London. Schmitt has covered military affairs expertly for years, has read his share of classified military dispatches and has excellent judgment and an unflappable demeanor. His main assignment was to get a sense of the material. Was it genuine? Was it of public interest? He would also report back on the proposed mechanics of our collaboration with The Guardian and the German magazine Der Spiegel, which Assange invited as a third guest to his secret smorgasbord. Schmitt would also meet the WikiLeaks leader, who was known to a few Guardian journalists but not to us.

Schmitt’s first call back to The Times was encouraging. There was no question in his mind that the Afghanistan dispatches were genuine. They were fascinating — a diary of a troubled war from the ground up. And there were intimations of more to come, especially classified cables from the entire constellation of American diplomatic outposts. WikiLeaks was holding those back for now, presumably to see how this venture with the establishment media worked out. Over the next few days, Schmitt huddled in a discreet office at The Guardian, sampling the trove of war dispatches and discussing the complexities of this project: how to organize and study such a voluminous cache of information; how to securely transport, store and share it; how journalists from three very different publications would work together without compromising their independence; and how we would all assure an appropriate distance from Julian Assange. We regarded Assange throughout as a source, not as a partner or collaborator, but he was a man who clearly had his own agenda.

By the time of the meetings in London, WikiLeaks had already acquired a measure of international fame or, depending on your point of view, notoriety. Shortly before I got the call from The Guardian, The New Yorker published a rich and colorful profile of Assange, by Raffi Khatchadourian, who had embedded with the group. WikiLeaks’s biggest coup to that point was the release, last April, of video footage taken from one of two U.S. helicopters involved in firing down on a crowd and a building in Baghdad in 2007, killing at least 18 people. While some of the people in the video were armed, others gave no indication of menace; two were in fact journalists for the news agency Reuters. The video, with its soundtrack of callous banter, was horrifying to watch and was an embarrassment to the U.S. military. But in its zeal to make the video a work of antiwar propaganda, WikiLeaks also released a version that didn’t call attention to an Iraqi who was toting a rocket-propelled grenade and packaged the manipulated version under the tendentious rubric “Collateral Murder.” (See the edited and non-edited videos here.)

Throughout our dealings, Assange was coy about where he obtained his secret cache. But the suspected source of the video, as well as the military dispatches and the diplomatic cables to come, was a disillusioned U.S. Army private first class named Bradley Manning, who had been arrested and was being kept in solitary confinement.

On the fourth day of the London meeting, Assange slouched into The Guardian office, a day late. Schmitt took his first measure of the man who would be a large presence in our lives. “He’s tall — probably 6-foot-2 or 6-3 — and lanky, with pale skin, gray eyes and a shock of white hair that seizes your attention,” Schmitt wrote to me later. “He was alert but disheveled, like a bag lady walking in off the street, wearing a dingy, light-colored sport coat and cargo pants, dirty white shirt, beat-up sneakers and filthy white socks that collapsed around his ankles. He smelled as if he hadn’t bathed in days.”

Assange shrugged a huge backpack off his shoulders and pulled out a stockpile of laptops, cords, cellphones, thumb drives and memory sticks that held the WikiLeaks secrets.

The reporters had begun preliminary work on the Afghanistan field reports, using a large Excel spreadsheet to organize the material, then plugging in search terms and combing the documents for newsworthy content. They had run into a puzzling incongruity: Assange said the data included dispatches from the beginning of 2004 through the end of 2009, but the material on the spreadsheet ended abruptly in April 2009. A considerable amount of material was missing. Assange, slipping naturally into the role of office geek, explained that they had hit the limits of Excel. Open a second spreadsheet, he instructed. They did, and the rest of the data materialized — a total of 92,000 reports from the battlefields of Afghanistan.

Bill Keller is the executive editor of The New York Times. This essay is adapted from his introduction to “Open Secrets: WikiLeaks, War and American Diplomacy: Complete and Expanded Coverage from The New York Times,” an ebook available for purchase at nytimes.com/opensecrets.


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Facebook is dealing with the German Privacy Group

Facebook, which has more than 10 million users in Germany, agreed to change his Friend Finder service to let the Germans better lock the possibility to contact people, including users of Facebook-not culled from address books user's e-mail.

Tina Kulow, a spokesman for Facebook in Hamburg, said in Germany would now be advises users that the site may send solicitations of people on their mailing list, you should choose to upload their address books to Friend Finder.

Facebook, the largest social networking site in the world, has the second Internet business based in the United States to change its operations according to the German privacy laws, which allow individual broad control over personal information. Google was the first. Last year, fines, before Google exclude photos Germans left their homes and apartments from his photographic Map Street View before the service went live.

Like Google, Facebook has decided to change its operation after Johannes Caspar, the data protection supervisor in Hamburg, initiated a review of the practices of the company. Violations of privacy German carry penalties up to $ 300,000 or $ 410,000, but the negative publicity can be more damaging.

Mr. Caspar, during an interview, said that his Office had received "many, many complaints" over the past six months by the Germans who had never used Facebook, but were still receive solicitations Facebook because their e-mail addresses were been siphoned from friends.

The issue has taken on the political overtones, with the data protection Commissioner of Federal Germany, Peter Schaar and its consumer protection Minister, Ilse Aigner, criticizing Facebook for neglecting the German privacy laws.

Mr. Caspar opened its administrative review of Facebook last July.

Initially his Office called Facebook Friend Finder service off in Germany. Meetings were held for the past seven months, he said. In the compromise announced Monday, Facebook agreed to explain the characteristics of prominent Friend Finder and educate users on how to limit your ability to access your contacts and store it.

Andrew Noyes, a Facebook spokesman in Washington said that the company hopes to continue to "constructive discussions and dialogue" with Mr. Caspar.

"We are pleased that we have reached a settlement with the Hamburg D.P.A. with regard to the concern of Friend Finder", said Mr. Noyes, referring to the German city authority for data protection.

Mr. Caspar said that his investigation remains open until he could see if the changes ended complaints.

Prosecutors in Hamburg are weighing whether to bring charges against Google for posting of personal home WiFi router. The admission of the company that were collected personal data from unencrypted WiFi router in the world has given rise to many invsestigations, most of which concluded with an apology and warnings on the ground that it was unintentional.

In Germany, after giving residents the opportunity to opt-out in advance, Google has added Street View in 20 cities of last year. The service includes photographs of around eight million households, said Mr. Caspar, but approximately 23 million more households in rural areas and smaller towns were not added to the store.

Google said it had to recruit workers to process all requests from Germans want to remove the photos of their residences from Street View.


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