Google reportedly pursuing ‘multipronged effort’ to build wireless networks in emerging markets

Google has been busy pushing ahead with plans to be a wired internet provider in the US with Google Fiber, and it looks like it’s intent on being a major player in the wireless network business elsewhere in the world as well. According to a report out today from The Wall Street Journal, Google is currently in the midst of a “mutipronged effort” that would “fund, build and help run wireless networks in emerging markets such as sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia.

Source: Engadget    Read More
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Rains once more cause damage at Apple’s Fifth Avenue NY store

Weather woes continue at Apple’s flagship Fifth Avenue store in New York City, as rain is once again seeping into the retail location, and now Apple’s SoHo location is said to have been suffering from the same problem.

Source: AppleInsider    Read More
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AT&T Prepaid Plans Now Support iPhone 5

AT&T’s prepaid GoPhone brand will now support the iPhone 5 and other LTE/HSPA+ devices. Although iPhone users have been able to sign up for voice service using GoPhone, this is the first time AT&T is opening access to the data network for those customers.

Source: Mashable    Read More
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App.net Surpasses 100K Users [INVITES]

App.net, an ad-free social platform popular with developers, has reached a big milestone: 100,000 registered users. The network launched in August 2012 to users willing to join for $50 per year. Since then, ADN, as it is often called, unveiled a new pricing structure of $36 per year or $5 per month.

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5 Mistakes to Avoid When Creating Branded Apps

With the smartphone increasingly becoming the tool of choice for many shoppers, businesses with their own mobile apps are quickly learning this is an excellent way to get a leg up on the competition. Branded apps, which give retailers a direct link to their consumers’ smartphones, are gaining in popularity among shoppers.

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Ron Paul Isn’t Getting RonPaul.com

Ron Paul doesn’t own RonPaul.com. Ron Paul wants RonPaul.com. Ron Paul isn’t getting RonPaul.com Paul has lost his World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) petition to get RonPaul.com from Paul supporters who run a fan site at the domain Paul filed the petition earlier this year, arguing it confuses Paul supporters who think it’s an official website.

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As More Alzheimer’s Drugs Fail, Researchers Find Hope In Vitamins And Spice

As more problems arise with pharmaceutical treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, two new studies suggest that compounds in cinnamon and vitamins B12, B6, and folate may offer some protection against the disease that presently affects some 5 million people in the U.

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Samsung’s Day Of Reckoning Is Coming

Samsung announced today that it has sold 10 million Galaxy S4 phones in the first month.  This amounts to a rate of about four phones sold per second. JK Shin, CEO of the IT and Mobile Communications Division at Samsung, said, ?On behalf of Samsung, I would like to thank the millions of customers around the world who have chosen the Samsung Galaxy S4.

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Want to make money & change the world? An idiot’s guide to ‘social entrepreneurship’

Muhammed Yunus is a 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner and the founder of Grameen Bank, and he sparked a movement with the simple question: “If you are a socially conscious person, why don’t you run your business in a way that will help achieve social objectives?” Today, entrepreneurs and investors in Silicon Valley — and increasingly in tech hubs around the world — have taken this mission to heart.

Source: VentureBeat    Read More
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iPhone 5S near? Best Buy offers $50 off iPhone 5

The first rule of iPhone is that it never, never goes on sale. The second rule of iPhone is that when iPhone does go on sale, it’s only last year’s model, or even older. The third rule of iPhone is that when this year’s model goes on sale, a new model is coming soon.

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Security researcher claims to have bypassed Samsung Galaxy S4′s secure boot check on AT&T and Verizon phones

Security researcher Dan Rosenberg claims to have found a “design flaw” in Samsung’s secure boot system for the Galaxy S4. When exploited, the security hole allows the owner of the device to install another operating system other than the version of Android used by Samsung.

Source: The Next Web    Read More
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Where are they now (Fisker edition)? The story gets even weirder

Electric car maker Fisker Automotive has yet to file for bankruptcy or find a buyer, but it already has some alum — two former Fisker CEOs — that are working on some unusual projects. Most notably, Reuters reported Friday that Fisker founder and former CEO Henrik Fisker has teamed up with Hong Kong mogul Richard Li in an effort to buy Fisker’s remaining $171 million in loans from the Department of Energy, so that Fisker won’t have to go bankrupt.

Source: GigaOM    Read More
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HTC reportedly takes a cue from Samsung, will offer “Google Edition” HTC One

With 5 million sales already, the HTC One is on its way to help HTC reverse its downward sales and profits trend. Counting on a single product to effectively save a company is a risky strategy though. Perhaps that’s why HTC is now planning a “Google Edition” version of the HTC One even though it previously denied any such Android device.

Source: GigaOM    Read More
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Fight over TV streaming heats up as broadcasters file new lawsuit in Washington DC

Major broadcasters filed a new lawsuit this week as part of an ongoing efforts to shut down services like Aereo that stream over-the-air TV to computer and mobile devices. In a complaint filed Thursday, the broadcasters — ABC, Fox, NBC, Allbritton Communications and Telemundo — asked the U.

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Network transparency: How future mobile networks could be built in glass windows

Ericsson engineers have begun experimenting with a new type of cell site – one embedded inside a window. As demand for mobile data grows, networks must get denser. That means building increasingly smaller cells and putting them much closer to mobile users.

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Unit testing Android apps is easy with Robolectric

Robolectric unit tests can verify expected application behavior, saving you the trouble of deploying your Android app to a device or an emulator.

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Laptop Week Google Chromebook Pixel

Features: Ships with Chrome OS (generally requires an update to get to latest build) 2560 x 1700, 239 PPI display 32GB SSD 1.8GHz Intel Core i5 Processor MSRP: $1,299 Pros: Hardware is incredibly well-designed Fast boot, right into Chrome-based workflow Touch is nice when actually needed Cons: Seems to leech battery quickly in sleep mode Still just Chrome Expensive Battery life could be better The Chromebook Pixel is the Chromebook I’d pick as my personal Chromebook – if money was no option, and if I felt I really needed a Chromebook.

Source: TechCrunch    Read More
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Erply Raises $2.15 Million Series B Led By Redpoint For iPad-Oriented Retail Software Tech

Erply, the startup that makes iPad-oriented and cloud-based point of sale and inventory management software for retailers, has raised $2.15 million in new funding, co-founder CEO Kristian Hiiemaa tells TechCrunch. The round, which is Erply’s Series B, was led by Redpoint Ventures with the participation of Index Ventures and Dave McClure’s 500 Startups.

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Amazon Launches App Engagement Reports, Allowing Appstore Developers To Track App Usage & Revenue

Continuing to grow its suite of services aimed at mobile app developers, Amazon today announced App Engagement Reports, free app usage reports which are now a part of the company’s Mobile App Distribution Portal. The reports are designed for Amazon Appstore developers in need of information about app performance and revenue.

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Disrupt SF 2013 Startup Battlefield Applications Are Open And Conference Tickets Are On Sale Now

TechCrunch Disrupt SF is back! We’re very excited to announce tickets are on sale and stealth companies can now apply for Startup Battlefield. This September 7-11, we’re bringing Disrupt back to San Francisco to welcome an all new slate of outstanding startups, influential speakers, guests and more to the stage.

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Tumblr Proves That Even Billion Dollar Companies Can Screw Up Mass Emails

Tumblr just can’t catch a break. Yeah, yeah, they’re getting a billion dollars from Yahoo— but it’s been a torrent of criticism ever since. Angry users! Porn! Poooooorn! Know what probably won’t help? Botching the key detail of an email sent to many of your most tech-savvy users.

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SMI, others to use Champions League final as eye-tracking experiment

It may be the most watched sporting event, but SMI’s more interested in how we watch the Champions League final than the game itself. The eye-tracking firm, in participation with the KMRC and University of Tübingen, will observe how 61 fans watch the Dortmund/Bayern tussle using its RED-m cameras.

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Gigabyte introduces BRIX, a customizable mini PC powered by Ivy Bridge CPUs

The mini PC market isn’t exactly a crowded one, but it’s never a bad thing to have options. Well, if you’re into the idea of adding an ultra-compact to your setup, Gigabyte’s just announced its highly customizable BRIX. The palm-sized PC appears to be the very same one we saw back at this year’s CES, but it’s now taken on a more polished, ready-to-hit-shelves look.

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NASA WISE Deputy Project Scientist Amy Mainzer on the Apple //e and Kinect-powered laptops

Every week, a new and interesting human being tackles our decidedly geeky take on the Proustian Q&A. This is the Engadget Questionnaire. In our latest round of gadget-related queries, Astrophysicist and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Principle Scientist Amy Mainzer discusses the fully-body typing experience and planetary preservation.

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Teacher Resigns Via YouTube Over Standardized Testing

Standardized testing has long been a hot-button topic among educational circles. But a veteran teacher is now taking a very open position against the concept by resigning from her job — and telling everyone about it on YouTube The video, which was posted on Tuesday under the account I Quit You Can’t Fire Me, is quickly going viral.

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Morgan Freeman Has a Hilarious Excuse for Dozing During Interview

Morgan Freeman set the Internet atwitter this week when he briefly fell asleep during a live TV interview alongside Michael Caine in support of their new film Now You See Me. But, as it turns out, there’s a perfectly logical — and awesome — explanation for Freeman’s doze-off.

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Online Campaigns Aim to Help Kai the Hitchhiker Beat Murder Rap

The never-dull story of Kai the Hitchhiker took a dark turn last week when the viral hero was unexpectedly arrested on murder charges. Since then, a small handful of online campaigns have tried to drum up support for the man who famously referred to himself as “homefree” — not homeless — and set him back on his untethered way Kai, less frequently known by his given name of Caleb McGillvary, was arrested at a Philadelphia bus terminal last Thursday.

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Report: 4 Companies Place Bids for Hulu

On the heels of Yahoo’s $1.1 billion acquisition of Tumblr, Hulu is suddenly snapping up bids left and right. According to The Los Angeles Times and Reuters, both the Chernin Group, in partnership with Providence Equity, as well as Guggenheim Digital Media, have placed bids for the streaming video service.

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Cable Management: A Conversation With Digital Storm PC’s Harjit Chana

To augment my ongoing PC gaming features and reviews of small form factor gaming systems, I’m publishing a series of audio interviews with the founders and executives of boutique PC vendors around the country. We begin the journey with a profile of Digital Storm PC and a conversation with COO Harjit Chana.

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No, Instagram Isn’t Randomly Deleting Accounts

A glitch Thursday night prompted rumors that Instagram was randomly deleting accounts. However, the company says although some people lost access to their accounts for a short time, there was no mass purge. Nevertheless, during the height of the rumors Thursday night, the hashtag #Dontdeletemyaccount made the rounds on Instagram (where more than 500,000 photos used the tag) and on Twitter.

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Scanadu’s Scout: The Sensor With Heart

Back in the day, when a physician needed to measure your arterial blood gases, particularly oxygen saturation, it’s was somewhat of a big deal.  The blood was drawn from an artery, usually from your wrist,  the blood sample was packed in ice and rushed to the lab.

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What do PayPal, Shazam, Trulia, Poshmark and Fjord have in common?

Few companies truly understand how the consumer thinks, and even fewer are able to successfully translate this understanding into an integrated mobile experience. But some do, and they’ve agreed to share their experience, opinions, and even some exclusive announcements, in person at our upcoming MobileBeat 2013 event on July 9-10 in San Francisco.

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Home automation via your face: here’s Google Glassware for Nest

Developer James Rundquist has just unveiled Glass Nest, an app for Google Glass that will let you control your Nest home thermostat directly from your nerdy, nerdy face. The future is here, and it belongs to white, male dorks. You heard it first here.

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Google Has A Trojan Horse To Disrupt TV: Really, Really Big Data

It’s a huge year for TV’s future. Yet for all the excitement about Web-first soap operas, data-driven programming and the disruption of broadcast, the Internet TV “inflection point” that 2013 has become is just the beginning. A Trojan horse is slowly rolling into town, and it’s bursting at the seams with data.

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Facebook confirms Pages can’t view Insights data beyond May 13 due to technical issues, is working on a fix

Facebook Page owners this week have noticed that their Page Insights data has not been updated since last week, as far back as May 13. Facebook has confirmed the issue with The Next Web and is currently working on a fix. “Page Insights data from 5/13 onward is currently delayed in Page Insights,” a Facebook spokesperson told TNW.

Source: The Next Web    Read More
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Private equity firms KKR and Silver Lake have reportedly made separate bids to purchase Hulu

The question about just who will buy Hulu just got a bit more complex as two large private-equity firms may have made individual bids for the video site. Bloomberg reports that KKR & Co and Silver Lake Management LLC have joined the fray of companies interested in purchasing the popular service.

Source: The Next Web    Read More
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Reports: FTC examining Google's display ads

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has reportedly launched an investigation into Google's display ad business amid complaints from rivals that the company is abusing its power in how it sells online-graphical and video ads.

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Researchers warn of increased Zeus malware activity this year

The amount of cybercriminal activity associated with the Zeus family of financial Trojan programs has increased during the past few months, according to security researchers from antivirus vendor Trend Micro.

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Oracle, managed services provider to settle suit over third-party support

Oracle and managed services provider ServiceKey have come to a proposed settlement of an intellectual-property lawsuit Oracle filed against the company last year.

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The Scanadu Scout’s big breakthrough may actually be in in clinical trials

When I was in college my friends would head on over to a company called PPD to play lab rat in medical trials in exchange for pay. They would spend a day or a week sequestered in rooms where they were monitored, poked, prodded and fed a regimen of bills or placebos, all in the name of science spending money.

Source: GigaOM    Read More
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Meet the cloud that will keep you warm at night

A company called AoTerra is doing very well indeed on the German crowdfunding platform Seedmatch. At the start of this month it broke the record for the most crowdfunding received so far by a German startup, leading Seedmatch to raise the limit on its round (investors get a share of the startup’s profits) from €500,000 ($648,000) to €750,000.

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Dozens Of Top E-Commerce Retailers Find It Pays To Put Customers’ Instagram Photos On Their Sites

The ROI of social media is something of a black box for many e-commerce companies, but New York-based startup Olapic is beginning to change that. The company, which allows brands to collect user-generated photos from services like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to display on their own website, is now offering an analytics suite to help retailers and brands understand what content works and how it’s affecting conversions.

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Foursquare agrees to share check-in data with Gnip, promises it’s anonymous

Foursquare is putting your check-in data to use through its new partnership with Gnip, a service that aggregates social media APIs. Gnip has similar deals with companies like Tumblr and Disqus, and it plans to provide Foursquare-sourced information to market and academic researchers.

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Android 4.3 reportedly spotted on a Nexus 4 with new camera software

We’ve already seen evidence confirming the existence of Android 4.3, and we now have our first shots that appear to show the OS running on an actual device. According to a member of the xda-developers forum, the phone above was spotted at the Thailand Mobile Expo currently taking place, with the about section of the OS and its familiar easter egg clearly indicating that it’s Android 4.

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Haswell chips could bring 50% more battery life to Apple’s next-gen MacBooks

The next generation in Apple’s MacBook line could see 50 percent greater battery life thanks to the processors expected to go into them, according to Intel.

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Tinder App Update Helps You Find That Summer Fling

The trend in dating apps is to mimic real life. While websites like OKCupid and Match.com made online dating feel like ecommerce, with many search functions and profile specifications to fill in, the mobile-first versions of digital dating often cut out this customization completely, instead allowing you to pull a few photos and basic information from Facebook Tinder’s iOS app is the best example of this trend, along with similar apps Acquaintable, Blendr and LikeBright.

Source: Mashable    Read More
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Apple Rumored to Go Black, White and Flat for iOS 7

Rumors that Apple is preparing major design changes with iOS 7 continue to heat up, with new reports suggesting a more muted and flat design aesthetic. Last October, Jonathan Ive became responsible not only for the look and feel of Apple hardware, but also its software.

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Five Things Arrested Development’s Comeback Can Teach The TV Business

Arrested Development, that short-lived but beloved comic portrait of the Bluth family, returns from the beyond this weekend. On May 26, 15 newly produced episodes of the show (which began its three-season run on Fox in 2003) become available in bulk on Netflix.

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GamesBeat weekly roundup:Xbox One unveiled, Yahoo acquires a game company

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed. This week, Microsoft unveiled the Xbox One, the company’s next-gen console and one-stop living room entertainment device, Ex-EA chief John Riccitiello urges console makers to consider consumer wants before shipping products, and Yahoo continues its acquisition madness by picking up the game company PlayScale.

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Foursquare gives it up (your checkins, that is) to Gnip

Foursquare and Gnip have entered into a partnership to fork over your checkin data to developers and big brands. Gnip will get access to Foursquare’s full firehose — every checkin, everywhere, everyone, and in real time. Of course, the companies tell us all the data will be totally anonymized.

Source: VentureBeat    Read More
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