Top Tech News - New Stuffs - Inventions - Applications

[techieguy]

A flurry of rumors circulated today about HTC launching Facebook-branded phones. Let's talk about this!
Why this rumor doesn't make sense

What CityAM is saying about the facebook phone might be right. But it seems off. CityAM didn't quote any sources, instead relying on old favorites "City A.M. has learned" and "it is understood...". OK, that happens all the time. But CityAM is hardly known for breaking tech news. Not to discredit a publication for never having made a scoop, it's unlikely that a free financial paper—in England, no less—that's handed out for free at train stations has the necessary contacts to dig up a story of this size.

And they've changed it now, but CityAM originally described HTC as a Korean company (they're Taiwanese). If they can't get this minor point right, it says something about their expertise, now, doesn't it? Still, we don't know CityAM is wrong any more than we can prove they are right. Lets just talk about the idea of a Facebook phone, itself.

Source: Does a Facebook Phone Make Any Sense? [Cellphones]

[techieguy]

A flurry of rumors circulated today about HTC launching Facebook-branded phones. Let's talk about this! Updated.

Why make a Facebook phone at all?

Facebook's iPhone app and lack of a dedicated iPad app are telling. The company is into its web based content but still behind on developing specific versions of their content for specific platforms. Those priorities make sense to me.

So the push for a specific piece of hardware, when Facebook won't even develop solid apps for all the existing mobile platforms, seems iffy. It's more likely that HTC is working on an updated version of Sense, its UI for Android, integrating Facebook—and perhaps even Twitter—deeper than we've seen in the past.

Indeed, Facebook spokesperson Jaime Schopflin herself confirmed back in September that Hewitt and Papakipos are already working on projects integrated Facebook into existing OSes, such as iOS and the INQ Mobile OS.

Source: Does a Facebook Phone Make Any Sense? (Updated) [Cellphones]

[techieguy]

Last night, President Obama delivered his yearly State of the Union address. Jobs! War! Bipartisanship! Awkward clapping! Sleeping senators! But also, lots of future talk. Below, we break down Obama's claims for America's tech horizon, and what they might mean.
Internet

THE INTERNET! Last night Obama mentioned it a whopping six times, as opposed to a whopping zero in last year's address. Could it be all that The Social Network Oscar buzz? Let's dissect.

Source: This Is Obama's State of the Future [Obama]

[techieguy]

The Sony PSP2 has arrived under the codename NGP. It has a 5-inch OLED touchscreen, dual analog sticks, front/rear cameras,a touch-sensitive panel on the back of the device used for control along with a quad-core CPU and GPU. (Updated)

Update: Turns out the internal magic of the PSP2 lies in its quad-core ARM Cortex A9 processor and quad-core PowerVR SGX534MP4+ GPU. I'm scared to think how big the battery has to be to power this thing.

Source: The NGP Is Sony's Super-Powered Playstation Portable [Gaming]

[techieguy]

   

Hulu is a terrific service. Who could argue with free, current episodes of primetime TV on your computer? But for months now, Netflix has been eating Hulu's lunch. And Hulu's plan to fight back sounds more like a swan song.

According to the WSJ, Hulu's role in the future might not be as an archive of network television at all. Instead, faced with splintering commitment from its partners and intense competition from Netflix, Hulu may upend its business model entirely. Instead of a warehouse of episodic content, Hulu could become a full-fledged online cable operator. That means live shows and video on demand, all accessed through Hulu.

Source: How Hulu Lost Its Place In a Netflix World [Streaming]

[techieguy]

Tonight I had a few beers, a nice dinner, and watched a documentary about people in other countries. And then I learned that the Egyptian government has decided to turn off the internet.

I despise "internet culture". It's so pointless, so self-fulfilling, so completely insular and without context. I'm the pessimist who looks at stories of "internet activism" and sort of snidely dismisses the whole smear, content in the knowledge that the uproar from a few tens of thousands of Western internet users doesn't accurately reflect the desires and concerns of millions of people around the world who are online.

Source: Is Internet Access a Human Right? [Egypt]

[techieguy]

If you'd have asked me a year ago if I would buy a new PlayStation Portable from Sony that wasn't a phone, I'd have scoffed. So why am I desperate for the NGP—the PSP2?

Nintendo and Sony are in a pickle. While they've both been milking their portable gaming lines over the last three years, Apple swooped in and changed the gaming market considerably, with a touchscreen-based iOS platform that has put thousands of games on the market at prices low enough to cause a gaming industry executive many sleepless nights.

Source: Why I Was Wrong About the PSP2...And Why I Don't Care [Psp2]

[techieguy]

The one last barrier for you using Google Voice full time—number porting—just got knocked down. But should you use Google Voice? Almost certainly yes.

To quickly summarize, Google Voice is like a layer inbetween your regular cellphone/landline and the outside world. It can block calls, route calls on a schedule, record calls, transcribe voicemails, ring all (or none of your phones) simultaneously, send text messages over 3G data (or from your computer), and make and receive free VoIP calls on your computer using your normal phone number. It's really quite good, and I've been using Google Voice for almost two years now with no regrets.

But should you switch?

Source: Should I Port My Number to Google Voice? [Google Voice]

[techieguy]

Twenty-five years ago today, the nation watched as the most diverse space crew in history took off into the sky. But after just seventy-three seconds that journey turned into a technological catastrophe like none we had ever seen before.

The tragedy was a distinctly modern one. The explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, NASA's second-oldest shuttle and one that had already completed nine missions, was undoubtedly most high-tech catastrophe in human history.

Source: Remembering the Challenger [Video]

[techieguy]

Yesterday, something unprecedented happened: Egypt turned off the internet. A nation of 80,000,000 instantly disconnected. So how'd they do it?

Phone Calls

There was no giant lever or big red button involved, but in reality it was almost as easy: the Egyptian Government simply issued an order for ISPs to shut down service.

Source: How Egypt Turned Off the Internet [Egypt]