Netizen

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Nexus 4: Sold Out

The hard part is there is no word from Google when it will be available again. There is a part of me that believes this was a marketing gimmick on the part of Google. This sold out in an hour thing was deliberate. Because if it was not then there might not be a Nexus 4 for me this holiday season.

If this selling out in an hour was unplanned and unexpected there might not be enough time to produce enough to meet the demand of the holiday season. I find it hard to imagine that is the case. You can't build as many as people can buy? Come on.

Nexus 4: My First Smartphone

Google Nexus 4 sells out within an hour in US, UK

According to reports from the UK, the 8 GB Nexus 4 disappeared from digital shelves within 15 minutes of launch ..... in the US, consumers apparently ran through the entire Nexus 4 supply – the 8 GB and 16 GB models – in an hour. ..... Google said more phones were on the way. ..... "There’s been so much interest for the Nexus lineup that we’ve sold out of some of our initial stock in a few countries," Google reps wrote. "We are working hard to add more Nexus devices to Google Play in the coming weeks to keep up with the high demand." ..... It's worth noting, of course, that Google has not revealed exactly how many Nexus 4 smartphones it had on hand. ...... the Nexus 4 is a beautiful, powerful phone – a worthy rival to the iPhone 5 and the Samsung Galaxy S III, the two devices that dominate the smart phone market today. ..... "What once was a smartphone series designed for developers has been decked out with top-notch features and priced so attractively that consumers will take notice of it; there's nothing comparable that comes close to it in that price range" ..... "This is a smartphone that we'd normally expect to be much more expensive unlocked, but Google set a precedent by lowering the cost of the Galaxy Nexus, keeping the Nexus 7 [tablet] at $200 and is now continuing the trend with the Nexus 4. The price of freedom has never been more reasonable."

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

The Surveillance State

FBI's abuse of the surveillance state is the real scandal needing investigation

The US operates a sprawling, unaccountable Surveillance State that - in violent breach of the core guarantees of the Fourth Amendment - monitors and records virtually everything even the most law-abiding citizens do. Just to get a flavor for how pervasive it is, recall that the Washington Post, in its 2010 three-part "Top Secret America" series, reported: "Every day, collection systems at the National Security Agency intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications." ...... And the Obama administration has spent the last four years aggressively seeking to expand that Surveillance State, including by agitating for Congressional action to amend the Patriot Act to include Internet and browsing data among the records obtainable by the FBI without court approval and demanding legislation requiring that all Internet communications contain a government "backdoor" of surveillance. ....... what is most disturbing about the whole Petraeus scandal is not the sexual activities that it revealed, but the wildly out-of-control government surveillance powers which enabled these revelations. What requires investigation here is not Petraeus and Allen and their various sexual partners but the FBI and the whole sprawling, unaccountable surveillance system that has been built.

THE DIGITAL SURVEILLANCE STATE: VAST, SECRET, AND DANGEROUS

Monday, November 12, 2012

Yahoo Mail Overhaul In The Offing

Image representing Yahoo! as depicted in Crunc...

Image via CrunchBase

I do have a Yahoo Mail account. It is the one I never shut down. But it is not one I use. I do use it for Craig's List. But other than that.

I think I left after I'd click saying this is spam and emails from that same address would still show up.

'Age of Marissa' to kick in with Yahoo Mail overhaul?

Yahoo is readying "a major overhaul" of Yahoo Mail for December that will sport "a cleaner, 'more Gmail-like' design." .... Gmail saw 287.9 million unique worldwide visitors during the period, edging out Hotmail, which finished with 286.2 million unique visitors. Yahoo -- the once mighty e-mail power -- came in third with 281.7 million. ..... Yahoo, however, holds a comfortable lead in the United States with 76.7 million, compared to second-place Gmail with 69.1 million and third-place Hotmail with 35.5 million.

Along With New Homepage, Yahoo Also Set to Launch a “Gmail-Like” Email Reboot to Slow Gmail Gains

the latest iteration of Yahoo Mail will be released in early December, just after the new homepage is rolled out widely ..... has publicly committed the company to releasing innovative and mobile-focused products as a key differentiator

As Fantasy Football Servers Fumble on Game Day, Yahoo Rolls Out More Homepage Tests Ahead of December Launch

upwards of $350,000 for a prime placement for a day, rising in price depending on complexity. ..... Yahoo was going to veer toward a “mobile first” sensibility. “Yahoo will have to be a predominantly mobile company”

Marissa Mayer Makes Her Move at Yahoo!

At Friday's close of $17.26, the stock is up 20% from its 52-week low. ..... Mayer, who sources tell me is greatly respected in Silicon Valley, has a sort of Obama moment, if you will—in the '08 sense, not the '12 sense. Having taken a rather bad hand, she enjoys tremendous good will in her effort to restore hope to Yahoo! and engender change. ..... As powerful data centers churn out incredible computing power and analyze every single move a Web user makes on every fast new gizmo in their hands, it's time to be aggressive, Ms. Mayer.

$199 Chromebook: Look At That Price Point

$249 was good enough, but $199 is a better price point. Will it have hit $149 by the end of next year? Lower? Earlier?

Google, Acer launch $199 Chromebook

But what I am really waiting for is the $99 tablet.

More Rumors Point to Possible $99 Nexus 7 Launch

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Aakash

How a $20 tablet from India could blindside PC makers, educate billions and transform computing as we know it

India has 900 million cell phone subscriptions, but in a country where smartphones are rare, 95% of Indians have no computing device. Which means the Aakash, or something like it, could become the sole computer for hundreds of millions of people in India, not to mention elsewhere in the developing world.

Now you can buy Aakash Tablet Online [But Will You?]

The screen is rather unresponsive. Sometimes I had to push the screen really hard to get a response..... It also heats up really fast. Which means in the heat and dust of India, it could face problems.... The tablet failed to install anything from the Android App Market.