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iPhone 5 a Hit Based on Key "Line Length" Metric

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What’s your kind of sex ? Choose your fantasy Sifting through hundreds of thousand TV ads, all over the world, Culturepub looks for the funniest & selects three of them daily for you to laugh and share with your friends. For a quick...&

WINDOWS PHONE 8 WALLPAPERS COLLECTION

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Haddaway – What Is Love Un clásico de los años 90 que no deben dejar de ver. Sígueme en el Twitter: @EduardoSanchezV


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NOKIA LUMIA 920 SPECS (CONFIRMED)

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will.i.am – This Is Love ft. Eva Simons Music video by will.i.am performing This Is Love. (C) 2012 Interscope Records Buy Now! iTunes: smarturl.it www.facebook.com twitter.com will-i-am.com


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Apple's iPhone 5 Is Pried Open and Its Profitable Secrets Start Bursting Out

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Realistic Hollywood Sex-Scene Two souls intertwine forever. One of them is still wearing socks. See our videos a month earlier on www.collegehumor.com and follow us on http Embed this video at www.collegehumor.com


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Groupon's Mason Says New Payments Business Will Help Sell More Deals

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Four ‘Johns’ Busted Having Public Sex with Prostitutes in Parks in Oklahoma City Ride along with the Original Video Vigilante, Brian Bates, as he uses his camcorder to spotlight the graphic reality of street prostitution in south...&

Apple's New iPhone 5 Ads Are Way Smarter Than The "Genius" Campaign

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Back to the Future Sex Scenes Let’s get this DeLorean up to 69 MPH. See our videos a month earlier at www.collegehumor.com and follow us on http


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This New Gadget Helps Long-Distance Lovers Simulate Sex

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Three Days Grace – Home Music video by Three Days Grace performing Home. (C) 2004 Zomba Recording LLC


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Twitter Throws Japan a Lifeline

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Un-safe Sex SECRET GAY AGENDA bit.ly LIKE us on: www.facebook.com Love is in the air in “Checkin’ For Gas 5,” CollegeHumor’s first porno. See more www.collegehumor.com FOLLOW us on www.twitter.com FOLLOW us on:...&

WINDOWS PHONE 8 ON NOKIA LUMIA 920

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Lil Wayne – How To Love (Shazam Version) Music video by Lil Wayne performing How To Love (Shazam Version). © 2011 Cash Money Records Inc.


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Apple's iPhone 5 Is Pried Open and Its Profitable Secrets Start Bursting Out

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The parts used build the base model of Apple’s iPhone 5 cost a combined $ 205 to acquire and assemble, according to an early teardown analysis by market research firm IHS.
The teardown analysis by the firm previously known as iSuppli is still...&

iPhone 5 a Hit Based on Key "Line Length" Metric

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The lines to purchase one of Apple’s new iPhone 5s in certain major U.S. cities are longer than they have been for any other iPhone launch.
That’s the word from Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, whose team surveyed lines outside Apple Stores...&

Nintendo Wii U Preorders Selling Out Ahead of Nov. 18 Launch

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John Busted Having Sex with Prostitute Wrecks His Car Ride along with the Original Video Vigilante, Brian Bates, as he shines a spotlight on the graphic reality of street prostitution in south Oklahoma City. In this episode a John picks up a...&

With New Search History Feature, Facebook Gets a Teensy Bit Googley

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So this is the kind of search Zuckerberg was talking about.
Facebook announced on Friday that it will add a search history feature to users’ Activity Log pages, allowing them to review any and all queries made inside of Facebook.com.
It’s...&

Why iOS Maps Shipped Buggy (Comic)

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The Overthinker 1 – Sex WATCH EP. 2 www.youtube.com Subscribe to us: www.youtube.com Follow our Twitter- www.twitter.com LIKE our Facebook- www.facebook.com This is what happens when you’re on a date and you think too much. EXACTLY what...&

Science Supposedly Settles The Cat/Dog Question Once And For All (WATCH)

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Simply Red – Home The full video for ‘Home’ by Simply Red. This song is featured on the double platinum album ‘Home’. For more information: www.simplyred.com www.myspace.com/simplyred www.youtube.com/simplyredvideo...&

John Paul Caponigro: Strengthen Your Creativity With Cell Phone Photography

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Diddy – Dirty Money – Coming Home ft. Skylar Grey On Tour Now! UK — Last Train To Paris bit.ly Released 24 Jan Music video by Diddy – Dirty Money performing Coming Home. © Bad Boy/Interscope Records


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What Will Marissa Do: Yahoo CEO Zeroes in on Search, While Her Ad Team Eyes Tech Upgrade Options

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It’s been nice to see all the euphoria at Yahoo about free food and iPhones kicking it up a notch.
But, purple people, guess what? Thems just your basic table stakes in Silicon Valley these days and pretty much everyone else has had such perks...&

Endeavour Embarks On A Tour Of The Golden State

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LOS ANGELES — Space shuttle Endeavour crisscrossed California Friday in a last aerial hurrah before retiring to a Los Angeles museum.
Hitching a ride on top of a jumbo jet, the pair departed Edwards Air Force Base, 100 miles north of Los Angeles,...&

RIM: Sorry About That BlackBerry Outage

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Research In Motion’s stock is plumbing the depths today after a three-hour BlackBerry service outage that affected users in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Shares tumbled over 6 percent to $ 6.46 following the misstep, which impacted about...&

Everything You Need To Prepare Your Old iPhone For Trade-In

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Hotly Anticipated iPhone 5 Goes In Sale In Stores
NEW YORK, NY – SEPTEMBER 21: Customers wait on line to purchase the Apple iPhone 5 outside the Apple Fifth Avenue flagship store on the first morning it went on sale on September 21, 2012 in...&

Sprint Nearly Sold Out of iPhone 5 at Many East Coast Spots

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Not surprisingly, the iPhone 5 is flying off store shelves as the product goes on sale across the globe.

A Sprint representative tells AllThingsD that it is sold out of the phones at many of its stores, just hours after the Apple smartphone went...&

Richard Branson Plans To Start Mars Colony

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Phil Collins – Take Me Home (Official Music Video) THE NEW ALBUM IS NOW AVAILABLE ON iTUNES: www.smarturl.it Phil Collins – Take Me Home [Official Music Video], released 1985. Official Website: www.philcollins.com Official Facebook...&

25 Things About Luke Wood

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As President and COO of Beats Electronics, Luke Wood has been largely responsible for transforming the company — founded by Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, and known mostly for its distinctive headphones — into a diversified stable of products and...&

Apple Loses Patent Case Against Android Rivals

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Danny MacAskill – “Way Back Home” Way Back Home is the incredible new riding clip from Danny MacAskill, it follows him on a journey from Edinburgh back to his hometown Dunvegan, in the Isle of Skye. You can read about it and watch...&

Facebook's Listening To Complaints About Security

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Danny MacAskill – “Way Back Home” Way Back Home is the incredible new riding clip from Danny MacAskill, it follows him on a journey from Edinburgh back to his hometown Dunvegan, in the Isle of Skye. You can read about it and watch...&

'There Is A Difference Between A Map And An App'

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An Associated Press reporter holds the Apple EarPods during a product review in San Francisco, Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)


The Apple EarPods are shown during a product review in San Francisco, Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012. (AP...&

LOOK: Man Appears To Point Gun At Google Street View Car

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Holland Road – Mumford & Sons (formerly Home) If you’ve seen Mumford & Sons live lately, then chances are you’ve heard their sweetly dark new tune “Holland Road” soon to be released on their upcoming album,...&

BREAKING: Hostage Situation At Pittsburgh High-Rise

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James Blunt – Carry You Home (Video) © 2008 WMG Carry You Home (Video)


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NYPD Urges iPhone 5 Users To Register Devices

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Gym Class Heroes: Ass Back Home ft. Neon Hitch [OFFICIAL VIDEO] © 2011 WMG. Gym Class Heroes’ music video for ‘Ass Back Home’ featuring Neon Hitch from the album, The Papercut Chronicles II – available now on Decaydance /...&

Mark Cuban: What Business Is Wall Street In?

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Gym Class Heroes: Ass Back Home ft. Neon Hitch [OFFICIAL VIDEO] © 2011 WMG. Gym Class Heroes’ music video for ‘Ass Back Home’ featuring Neon Hitch from the album, The Papercut Chronicles II – available now on Decaydance /...&

WATCH: What Does It Feel Like To Have Alzheimer's?

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Stephanie Mills – Home Music video by Stephanie Mills performing Home. (C) 1989 Geffen Records


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JetBlue Promises Free Wi-Fi, Faster Connectivity

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Three Days Grace – Home Music video by Three Days Grace performing Home. (C) 2004 Zomba Recording LLC


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'Texts From Mitt Romney'

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Brian Eno & David Byrne – Home Have a look: www.facebook.com Lyrics : The dimming of the light makes the picture clearer It’s just an old photograph There’s nothing to hide When the world was just beginning I memorized a face...&

Oracle's Sales Fall, Shares Rise: It's An Upside-Down World

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Shares of the software giant Oracle are roaring this morning in the wake of yesterday’s quarterly earnings report, where the headline focus was on smaller-than-expected sales.
While the shares fell in after-hours trading, investors sent the share...&

Swiss Railway Ticked Off at Apple Over iPad Clock App

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While Apple often accuses others of copying its work, this time the shoe is on the other foot.
Swiss railway operator SBB says the design of a new clock app on the iPad copies its signature — and trademarked — clock.

“The rights for this...&

It's 2012, and Web Video Still Hasn't Made a Dent In TV

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Everyone watches a lot of Web video. So obviously the people who spend a lot of money advertising on TV are going to start spending that money on the Web.
“Go where your customers have gone,” Google chairman Eric Schmidt told advertisers at a...&

Aereo Says New Content Deals Coming For Web TV

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Aereo, the startup that lets users watch broadcast TV over the Web, is branching out.
CEO Chet Kanojia says his IAC-backed company will soon start offering programming that doesn’t come from local TV stations, which he’ll sell for an additional...&

Michael Beckerman: The Internet Vote

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The Goo Goo Dolls – Home (official video) The Goo Goo Dolls – Home (official video)


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Former Palm Employees Cook Up Kitchen-Centric Kickstarter Project

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They say inspiration can strike at any time. And for some, that time is when you’re about to change your baby’s diaper.
One night late last year, Rob Katcher, a former product manager at Palm who worked on such devices as the Treo 700p and...&

Former Zynga Executive Jeff Karp Lands at GSN Digital

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After stepping down as Zynga’s chief marketing officer 10 days ago, Jeff Karp is joining GSN as EVP of Mobile & Social Games. When he starts on Monday, Karp will be in charge of GSN Digital’s virtual currency business across its mobile,...&

How Private Can You Get? Origami's Social Network Takes Families Into the Fold.

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The natural reaction to the meteoric rise of sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn is to pull back. We’ve seen it with Path and EveryMe, the latter being Oliver Cameron’s friends- and family-centric mobile application launched earlier this...&

Trulia Shares Surge as Much as 43 Percent in IPO

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If only the housing market were doing so well: Trulia shares climbed as much as 43 percent to $ 24.24 a share today in its public market debut. The San Francisco online real estate listings company priced shares at $ 17 apiece last night, up...&

Walmart Fires the Kindle

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Amazon says it has been selling a lot of Kindles and Kindle Fires, but it’s not going to be selling any more with the help of the world’s biggest retailer.
Walmart has stopped selling all of Amazon’s hardware, a move it chalks up to its...&

Samsung: Hey, Everyone! We Might Sue Over the iPhone 5!

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Samsung hasn’t yet had a chance to examine the iPhone 5, which goes on sale tomorrow. But after it does, the company is pretty sure that it will add it to the list of Apple devices it believes infringe upon its intellectual property.
In a new...&

More Dive Into Mobile Speakers: Twitter's Stanton, MLB.com's Bowman and Lady Gaga's Manager Carter

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There are many industry conferences where people pontificate about the business of mobile technology, but one of our aims at D: Dive Into Mobile is to extend that conversation into something more real. We want to talk about what devices enable us...&

Kare Anderson: Insight From Massive Social Experiment Could Sway Voting, Spending and Other Behavior

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Switchfoot -This is home (Full Song) with Lyrics A single by Switchfoot for the movie “The Chronicles of Narnia Prince Caspian” Released year: 2008 Lyrics: Ive got my memories Always inside of me But I cant go back, back to how it was I...&

Usage of Apple's iOS 6 Hits Staggering Levels on First Day of Availability

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One would expect that a significant number of people would quickly adopt Apple’s iOS 6. After all, it’s a free update, and it packs a bunch of useful features.
However, new data from Chitika shows a massive adoption in just the first 24 hours...&

After Lots of iOS Attention, Facebook Gives a Little Love to Its Android Apps

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The masses swooned over Facebook’s much-needed update to its iOS applications last month. (Just in time, too, for the iPhone 5 launch.) One month later, Facebook is giving more attention to the Googley crowd.
Facebook will update its main Android...&

Robert St. Amant: Science, Engineering, and Innovation (for Everyone)

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Mumford & Sons – Home (NEW SONG HQ) www.facebook.com Nueva canción de Mumford & Sons titulada “Home”, interpretada en KBCO Radio. New Mumford & Sons song called “Home”, played in KBCO Radio.


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The Venture Capital Secret: Three Out of Four Start-Ups Fail

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It looks so easy from the outside. An entrepreneur with a hot technology and venture-capital funding becomes a billionaire in his 20s.
But now there is evidence that venture-backed start-ups fail at far higher numbers than the rate the industry...&

Nokia: Map Apps Can't Be Built Overnight. Just Look at Apple's.

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Apple’s iOS 6 Maps publicity nightmare is a dream come true for Nokia.
As Apple was buffeted by complaints about the various failings of the homegrown mapping app that replaced Google Maps in iOS 6, its Finnish rival published a timely blog post...&

Groupon Managing Editor Departs to Join Wrapports

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sex in lahore


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Managing editor Brandon Copple has left Groupon, the...&

BlackBerry Services Down for Many

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Sex Taxi Episode 4 (English Dub) Today’s episode deals with a cheerleader this time. How will the Taxi driver handle this?


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Adam Levin: 94 Million Exposed: The Government's Epic Fail on Privacy

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Daughtry – Home (acoustic) This is the best version of “Home” that I’ve seen so far!!!


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Jim Kukral: Explainer Videos Are the New Infographics

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Zero 7 – Home Last good CD from Zero 7 in my humble opinion.


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In the...&

Viral Video: The Cast of "The West Wing" Reunites to Promote Non-Partisan Voting (Also Walking and Talking at the Same Time)

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She’s Mad Hot And The Sex Is Wild! Don’t be a prune about sex and LIKE/FAV the video! Click to SHARE on Facebook: tinyurl.com Click to TWEET on Twitter: tinyurl.com E-mail me! doctordavidbrown@gmail.com Gaming Channel: www.youtube.com...&

Women & Co: 5 Ways to Use Your Smartphone Camera to Stay Organized

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Switchfoot – This Is Home Music video by Switchfoot performing This Is Home. (C) 2008 SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT


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Brian_Kelly: How Presidential Candidates Can Use Online Video to Run an Effective Campaign

Time Warner Cable OK With Theoretical Apple TV, Won't Say "Apple TV"

Time Warner Cable might be ok with something like the set top box Apple is reportedly proposing, COO Rob Marcus said today at a Goldman Sachs conference. Marcus didn’t mention Apple by name, but said his company would consider selling TV subscriptions using third party technology, even if  ”in some of those cases that may mean giving up control of the interface.” His comments echo earlier reports that Time Warner Cable has discussed the concept with Apple.

Interview: T-Mobile's New Chief Says He's Ready to Fight

Interview: T-Mobile's New Chief Says He's Ready to Fight

T-Mobile USA’s new chief executive said Wednesday that those who are counting his company out will be proven wrong.

“If you thought T-Mobile was going to shrink and wither away you are completely wrong,” John Legere told AllThingsD on Wednesday.

T-Mobile, of course, faces an uphill battle. The carrier has been bleeding customers since before its failed bid to be acquired by AT&T. It also is the only major carrier without an iPhone to sell and is behind Sprint, AT&T and Verizon when it comes to offering next-generation LTE service.

In taking on the post, Legere said he sought assurances from T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom that it was willing to invest the resources in the U.S. carrier needed to succeed.

“Are you ready to fight,” Legere said he asked DT CEO Rene Obermann. “What I heard from Rene is yes.”

Legere said his goal is to build a company that is thought of as the “un-carrier” and more customer-friendly than its rivals.

He indicated the company plans to continue with its same strategy, building an LTE network to be ready by the middle of next year as well as offering unlimited data plans to lure customers.

Legere fills the spot vacated by Philipp Humm who left T-Mobile in June and took up a post at European rival Vodafone.

Obermann told AllThingsD said he was looking for a different kind of leader for the company and noted the company talked to many people over the months it sought a new leader.

“I was looking to find an entrepreneur and innovator, someone who thinks out of box.”

HTC Enters the Windows 8 Race with 8X and 8S Smartphones

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer appeared on stage in New York for the second time this month to tout two new Windows 8 smartphones, this time from Taiwanese handset-maker HTC.

The devices, called the Windows Phone 8X and the Windows Phone 8S, have Super LCD 2 displays coated with scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass.

Mirroring Nokia Lumia’s new 820 and 920 Windows 8 models, the phones look similar but vary slightly in specs. The HTC 8X has a slightly bigger 4.3-inch screen while the 8S has a four-inch screen.

Both phones include Beats audio, for better sound quality, and both have an ultra-wide camera lens, with an eight-megapixel sensor in the rear camera and a 2.1-megapixel front-facing camera. The cameras also support full 1080p HD video capture.

“Today’s a significant milestone for HTC and Microsoft,” Ballmer said, calling the two new phones Microsoft’s and HTC’s “biggest endeavor yet.”

HTC’s CEO Peter Chou spoke at the event as well. “Windows Phone is an important part of HTC’s heritage. We have more experience making Windows phones than anyone else, and we’ve sold more Windows phones than anyone else.”

The phones are expected to launch in November, though pricing is still unknown. HTC said the phones will be available across 150 mobile operators in 50 countries. In the U.S., they’ll be available through T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon. Both the 8X and 8S are available in a variety of colors, including blue, black, flame red and bright yellow.

The stakes are especially high for HTC, as the company facies slumping sales in the ultra-competitive smartphone market.

This past April HTC launched its $ 200 One S and One X models, Android-based smartphones that have gotten mostly favorable reviews. As AllThingsD‘s Ina Fried reported earlier this month, HTC has said it plans to put more weight behind fewer products â€" particularly its One family â€" and that the company needs to be less quietly brilliant, as the slogan goes, and “more bold.”

While Microsoft hasn’t been detailing exactly what will be included in the upcoming Windows 8 Phone operating system, expected in late October, there have been a few hardware announcements that have given us a good glimpse of what we might expect. The operating system has a tile-like design that moves away from the app icon-laden interfaces that have become standard for smartphones.

Samsung, in late August showed off its upcoming Windows 8 phone, the ATIV S, just days ahead of Nokia’s big New York City event showcasing its upcoming Lumia 820 and 920 smartphones.

If it seems like I’m using the word “show” a lot, it’s on purpose â€" because right now a lot of this is for show, at least, until we have more details on pricing and exact launch dates for some of these phones.

And of course, it doesn’t really matter who announces what first, or which phones make it to market when. It matters who does it better. Whether HTC does it better remains to be seen.

Salesforce CEO Benioff Has Lots Of New Things To Launch Today

Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff is taking the stage shortly at his company’s Dreamforce conference in San Francisco. His remarks, and the company’s announcements will essentially set the table for the company’s agenda for the next year or so. Here’s a rundown of what he’ll be talking about.

Chatterbox: This is the offering that Benioff telegraphed last week and which raised so many eyebrows. Salesforce calls it the “Dropbox for the Enterprise, laying aside the fact that one called Box already exists. Anyway, the point is to “manage and share files in the context of business” as the press release says. Once you get employees collaborating via social tools, they’re going to want to share files they can work on together within that context. Box, in which Salesforce is an investor, is one target, as is Dropbox. But so is Microsoft’s Sharepoint.

Salesforce Identity: Once you get into the business of integrating a bunch of cloud services into one place you need to manage all the sign-on credentials involved. This is the reason that the startup Okta exists. Salesforce is essentially aiming to compete with Okta.

Work.com: Remember when Cloud-based human resource and talent management software companies were being acquired at a rapid pace in part because of the rise of Workday? Salesforce got into the act too by acquiring a tiny HR cloud player called Rypple. Work.com is its new name.

Salesforce Touch: One of the earliest companies to see the potential for Apple’s iPad as a tool for use in the enterprise was Salesforce.com. It had early versions of its core customer-relationship management applications in the App store, and has since expanded its reach to Android and other platforms. Today it’s kicking that commitment to mobile up a notch. Salesforce Touch uses HTML5 allowing it work easily on iOS and Android tablets and phones, and is optimized for touch interface. The point is to make Salesforce to easy to get at when on the go â€" and sales people always are on the go â€" that they can take advantage of just a few minutes of downtime and get things done from a mobile device.

Chatter Communities for Partners: There are a lot of reasons that a company might want to build a social community. The classic example I can think of is a video game company that wants to support people working their way through the levels of a tough game, but then there’s also reason that you might want to set up a social network of vendors you by from, or distributors who resell your products, or third parties who support what you sell. The idea is make creating that community easy and full-featured from the start so there’s not so much expense and effort involved. It’s built on Chatter, which is Salesforce’s enterprise social and collaboration platform.

Data.com Social Key: It’s one thing to ask a sales lead what he thinks about something, but quite another to keep track of what he or she Tweets or blogs about on that same topic, and often it can yield some insight to help close a deal. To now, Data.com has been Salesforce’s go-to offering for background intelligence on sales leads, combining things like Dun and Bradstreet profiles with contact information from Jigsaw. Social Key brings information gleaned from Twitter and blogs and YouTube videos into the mix.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud: Salesforce’s two biggest acquisitions in recent memory are Buddy Media and Radian6. With the Marketing Cloud, Salesforce aims to combine the strengths of the two to draw together disparate strings of conversations with customers via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and online communities. It also helps create and manage marketing campaigns within those communities and track the results of those efforts.

Heroku Enterprise for Java: Oracle’s Java is the most widely used programming language in use in the Enterprise. Today Heroku, the cloud-based software development service that Salesforce acquired in 2010 is for the first time embracing the community of Java developers. Getting a Java app built means assembling a bunch of different tools piecemeal from different sources. The new Java service gets software developers fully ready to get right to work with a single click, which saves a lot of time and effort, and thus reduces the cost of development. One other feature sure to be popular with the developers is integration with Atlassian, a collaboration tool that’s geared toward the needs of programmers.

It’s worth nothing that Salesforce shares have been trading up considerably in the last month or so in part because of anticipation of Dreamforce, but also on Salesforce’s strong results. Today the shares are up by $ 1.09 to $ 157.38, which amounts to a 61 percent increase year-to-date. Say what you will about the Salesforce Kool-Aid, its shareholders like the taste.

Mobile Game Start-Up Scopely Scoops Up $8.5 Million

Los Angeles-based Scopely has raised $ 8.5 million to develop a line of mobile games that have a familiar ring to them. Titles include Dice With Buddies and Jewels With Buddies.

But don’t get the “With Buddies” games confused with Zynga’s “With Friends” franchise, which has such well-known hits as Words With Friends and Scramble With Friends.

Scopely was founded by AdSense co-creator Eytan Elbaz, Walter Driver and Ankur Bulsara, and has been operating in stealth mode since last year, an announcement that my colleague Liz Gannes teasingly wrote about here.

The caliber of the team shows how intense the mobile games race has become, and is precisely why Zynga will have a hard time dominating the top of the charts like it did on Facebook.

Investors in Scopely’s round include Anthem Venture Partners, The Chernin Group, Greycroft Venture Partners and New Enterprise Associates (NEA). Many other well-known angels also participated, including former Yahoo CEO Terry Semel and Buddy Media CEO Michael Lazerow.

Check out Scopely’s Web site to see its credentials in excruciating detail, or read the full release below:

Scopely Closes $ 8.5 Million in Seed Funding Led By Anthem Venture Partners

LOS ANGELES, CA â€" September 19, 2012 â€" Scopely, the mobile developer/publisher founded by AdSense Co-Creator Eytan Elbaz, Walter Driver and Ankur Bulsara, today announced $ 8.5 million in seed financing. The round includes primary investors Anthem Venture Partners, The Chernin Group, Greycroft Venture Partners and New Enterprise Associates (NEA).

Samit Varma of Anthem Venture Partners said, “We had been tracking the Scopely team for months so we were very interested when we had the opportunity to get involved.  As we dug in further, we were really compelled by their differentiated vision of the intersection between social, mobile and games. The team they’ve assembled and the traction they’ve seen to date is quite impressive.”

Other notable investors participating in the round include: former Yahoo CEO Terry Semel; ShoeDazzle and Honest Company founder Brian Lee; Buddy Media CEO Michael Lazerow; LiveRamp CEO/Rapleaf Chairman Auren Hoffman; Red Swan Ventures; Double M Capital Managing Partner Mark Mullen; Amplify Co-Founder/Accel Venture Partner Richard Wolpert; TechStars CEO David Cohen; TechStars NY Managing Director David Tisch; Burstly CEO Evan Rifkin, Sands Capital, Factual CEO Gil Elbaz and Aydin Senkut’s Felicis Ventures.

“We’re thrilled to be working with such a distinguished group of investors.  We are big proponents of the Los Angeles startup ecosystem so it’s great to have investors like Anthem, Greycroft and The Chernin Group who are based in LA and have unique expertise in the digital media space involved,” said Walter Driver, co-founder and CEO of Scopely.

Scopely has been operating in stealth mode since last year, quietly amassing an all-star team of 30 engineers, data scientists and product managers.  The company will use the additional capital to accelerate growth and expand its product offerings.

Scopely’s With Buddies franchise of multiplayer games has grown rapidly to millions of active users. Current With Buddies titles available in the AppStore include: Dice With Buddies and Jewels With Buddies.

About Scopely
Based in Los Angeles, California, Scopely develops and publishes mobile social applications including the With Buddies franchise of multiplayer games. Founded in 2011 by Eytan Elbaz (Applied Semantics, Google), Walter Driver (O Negative Media) and Ankur Bulsara (MySpace), the company has received $ 8.5 million in seed financing to date.  To learn more, please visit www.scopely.com.

Mobli Banks $22 Million in Series B Round

Social photo-sharing app Mobli announced Wednesday that it had raised another $ 22 million in its series B round of funding, with the bulk of the money ($ 20 million) coming from a single investor â€" Kazakh multimillionaire Kenges Rakishev. Mobli has raised $ 28 million to date, and will use the capital injection to continue in its quest for share in an increasingly crowded market with no dearth of photo-sharing applications.

Brooklyn Bridge Ventures Raises $3.5 Million

Charlie O’Donnell’s Brooklyn Bridge Ventures early-stage fund has raised its first $ 3.5 million, led by committments from Two Sigma Ventures and Jeffrey Citron’s KEC holdings. O’Donnell hopes to eventually raise up to $ 10 million for the fund, which he says is the first Brooklyn-based VC fund.

T-Mobile USA Names John Legere as new Chief Executive

T-Mobile USA said on Wednesday that it has named John Legere as its new CEO, filling a spot vacated in June with the departure of Philipp Humm.

Legere will have quite a task on his hands as the No. 4 U.S. carrier has been struggling to stem a tide of customer defections, particularly among its base of contract customers.

At the moment, T-Mobile is the only of the major carriers without an iPhone to sell. The company is also behind when it comes to offering next-generation LTE services. The company said it plans to start offering LTE next year, but Verizon already has hundreds of cities covered and AT&T and Sprint have also begun deploying LTE networks of their own.

For the moment, T-Mobile is focused on a push to make its current 3G network more iPhone-friendly and hope that cheaper plans can convince thrifty customers to bring their own iPhone to the carrier.

Here Come The Tweets: Gnip Offers Access to Full Twitter Archive (For a Price)

Here Come The Tweets: Gnip Offers Access to Full Twitter Archive (For a Price)

Twitter is largely credited with the rise of the “interest graph,” the name for the network of various and sundry things we as humans like to do, and the ways in which those interests connect us to one another. Each tweet brings more insight as to what we’re thinking, what we care about in realtime, with hundreds of millions of those signals flowing through Twitter’s pipes each day.

It’s a rich trove of data that can prove extremely valuable to marketers and research firms, though only a handful of companies pay for access to the “firehose,” Twitter’s stream of real-time tweet data. And not all of those companies have full access, meaning the data may be less meaningful than, say, if you had access to every tweet ever tweeted, since Twitter’s inception six years ago.

That’s Gnip’s pitch, at least. Gnip, a social data API aggregation company which sells vast amounts of social data to third-party analysts and marketers through its single API, announced on Wednesday that it will now offer the entirety of all archived tweets available for outside analysis. Provided, of course, that you pay to use Gnip’s new “historical powertrack” product.

Gnip has offered a similar service in the past. The company’s original offering touted filtered search results for firms, including a 30-day “backtrack,” which allowed for viewing complete Twitter data information over the past month. That’s useful for, say, a company who has just launched a media campaign and wants to see the effect of its impact on the Web â€" or at the very least, how that buzz has translated into chatter among the Twitter-literate.

Gnip was the first to do this; competitor DataSift followed suit shortly thereafter, offering more history than Gnip â€" up to two years of previous tweets.

The appeal of Gnip’s new service, then, is to contextualize a given search term throughout the entirety of Twitter’s history, perhaps seeing the impact (or lack thereof) different marketing campaigns have had generating social media buzz.

All of that said, whether lots of Twitter buzz translates to actual sales or market movement is still a point of contention between marketers and analysts â€" especially in the still-nascent days of brands and big media figuring out how to most effectively use platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare to effectively reach consumers.

But at the very least, Gnip’s new offering means you won’t have to resort to thumbing the Dewey Decimal cards of the Library of Congress the next time you’re trying to gain access to one of your old messages, long-since tweeted. Just be prepared to cough up some green.

Groupon Promising Merchants "Lowest Cost" Payments Service (And It's Using an iPhone)

Groupon is rolling out a new payments service today, which it hopes will create new reasons for merchants to continue using the Chicago daily deal provider.

In an interview, Mihir Shah, Groupon’s VP of Mobile and Merchant Products, confirmed to AllThingsD that Groupon Payments is available starting today in the U.S.

The launch follows a pilot program in the San Francisco area with more than 150 businesses. The service allows merchants to accept credit and debit cards by swiping them through a card reader attached to an iPhone or iPod touch.

While payments has become a very hot space over the past year, with many companies providing card readers for mobile devices, what stands out about its service is the price. At least, that’s what Groupon is hoping.

Shah said Groupon is guaranteeing it has the cheapest rates â€" and will beat a merchant’s current rates if it doesn’t. He said that merchants often don’t even know what they are paying because of complicated rate structures and monthly fees that make it hard to figure out.

Because of that, Groupon is offering three main rate structures:

• Swiped transactions â€" MasterCard, Visa and Discover (1.8% plus 15 cents) and American Express (3% plus 15 cents)
• Keyed-in transactions â€" MasterCard, Visa and Discover (2.3% plus 15 cents) and American Express (3.5% plus 15 cents)
• Non-Groupon merchants can also sign-up for the service, however, they will be charged slightly more (2.2% plus 15 cents for MasterCard, Visa and Discover).

Shah would not say whether Groupon was subsidizing the service for merchants willing to run coupons through its network, but it didn’t sound like it. He said, “It certainly something great that we are giving Groupon merchants; we are it in for an actual business.”

Groupon is looking for new services that will drive additional revenues for the company to diversify away from its slowing coupons business. Other recent tools it has launched for merchants, such as online scheduling software or rewards programs, may make merchants happy, but haven’t necessarily been bringing in much additional revenue.

One big advantage Groupon will have in rolling out payments is that it already has a large salesforce speaking to retailers on a regular basis. Still, other company’s, like San Francisco-based Square, technically have a head start.

Square just closed a $ 200 million round on Monday, valuing it at $ 3.25 billion. As of yesterday, that was slightly more than Groupon’s public valuation of $ 3.07 billion. Additionally, Square is on pace to log $ 8 billion in transactions this year and just signed up Starbucks as one of its customers. It also has a more simple rate structure than Groupon, charging 2.75 percent per transaction, or a flat rate of $ 275 a month (for those that do less than $ 250,000 a year in revenues). It is hard to say which one costs more because it varies based on the number of transactions being completed and the types of cards being used.

Shah said Groupon Payments comes with other features, too. The service will use a card swiper that either plugs into the phone’s audio jack, like Square, or a phone case that is identical to the one used in Apple stores today to accept payments. The first one is free, while the more durable case costs $ 100.

The app, while primarily operated by the merchant, will also be used by the consumer to designate a tip; trace their fingertip along the screen to sign their signature; and enter their email address to receive an electronic receipt. Merchants will be able to view the transactions online and they will receive the cash in their bank account overnight. Groupon will also provide customer support over the phone seven days a week. In addition, merchants will be able to use the app to scan and redeem Groupons and monitor additional spend over the value of the Groupon.

Shah doesn’t think that it will compete with Square, rather it is targeting existing “Groupon merchants, who are running a brick and mortar restaurant business, like a restaurant or spa, and have already been accepting credit cards for a long time and have high volumes,” he said. “The thing that comes up again and again is credit card processing, and we think they are paying too much.”

Why Okta CEO Todd McKinnon Likes Having Salesforce.com As a Competitor

Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff is a few hours away from taking the stage at the company’s huge Dreamforce conference in San Francisco, which appears to have taken over the city. Last night I happened to drive by City Hall, and saw that an area outside it had been converted into a huge stage that will accommodate, among other things, a performance by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, marking the first shot in a sort of battle of the early-90s rock bands between Salesforce and Oracle.

There’s another drama playing out ahead of Benioff’s keynote concerning what he may or may not say about a series of features and services that Salesforce is launching that have been called Chatterbox. Last week Benioff surprised a lot of people by declaring at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference last week that he was gearing up to launch services that would compete with Box, the enterprise cloud file-sharing and collaboration service, and also with Okta, a cloud identity-management service.

Aaron Levie, Box’s CEO said he had seen the service coming for a few months now, and that it was, in a sense inevitable. Salesforce’s Chatter social enterprise social service, would in time need a robust file-sharing capability built in to it anyway.

Since then I’ve checked in with Todd McKinnon, CEO of Okta. His reaction was pretty close to that of Levie’s. He’s known that it was coming for awhile, and Salesforce had to do it anyway. “Salesforce is realizing that with the cloud and a mobile work force that managing the identity layer is a key part of it,” McKinnon told me Monday. “They finally woke up to it. It’s a little unnerving when someone as big as Salesforce gets into your space, but it makes it clear to our customers and partners that this is a big deal we’re working on, so in that sense it’s a big validation.”

With so many companies adopting cloud services and creating accounts for employees on all of them, McKinnon, left Salesforce, where he had headed up its engineering efforts, to start Okta. The service gathers up all those cloud account credentials and passwords and creates a single sign-on for all of them, making them easy to manage. Salesforce.com is one of the 1,351 services it works with. Others include Box, Google Apps, Netsuite, Workday and Microsoft’s Windows Azure.

McKinnon takes some encouragement from the data he sees courtesy of his own service. Offering a service for unified sign-ons makes Okta sort of a barometer for the cloud ecosystem, he says. Chatter, Salesforce’s social service, is more or less central to Salesforce’s efforts to unify its many offerings, and is Salesforce’s answer to services like Jive and Yammer that have sought to make the process collaborating within a company a little more akin to using Facebook.

Salesforce’s promotion of Chatter helped Jive and Yammer seem more legitimate. “Salesforce put all this money and effort behind Chatter, but it didn’t kill Yammer or Jive, it only accelerated their business,” he said. Jive IPO’d last year and Yammer was acquired by Microsoft for $ 1.2 billion over the summer. “Once Salesforce comes out with its identity management product, I think more people will look at us.”

So how much of a competitive threat does McKinnon see from Salesforce? Some, but announcements aren’t products. And there’s the rub. Salesforce, McKinnon says, has a habit of making big announcements from the stage at Dreamforce, and then not following up, or least not following up to the extent that the pronouncements from the keynote stage would seem to imply. “Salesforce is in many ways a marketing-driven company,” he says. “We’ll have to see how they execute. The real proof will be in how they follow up this Dreamforce announcement.”

Samsung Galaxy Note II Headed to the U.S. Mid-November

If you’re already thinking about your holiday shopping and are a fan of extra-large smartphones, here’s something you might want to add to your wish list.

Samsung announced today that its Galaxy Note II will be available by mid-November from five U.S. carriers: AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile and U.S. Cellular. Specific launch dates and pricing will come from the individual service providers in the coming weeks.

Announced in late August at the IFA Consumer Electronics Show, the Galaxy Note II has a 5.5-inch HD touchscreen, bigger than its predecessor (the Galaxy Note has a 5.3-inch display), and comes with an S Pen stylus.

When the stylus is removed from the phone, it automatically launches a set of apps optimized for use with the S Pen, such as the note-taking program S Pen. It also has mouselike functionality. For example, you can hover the pen over the screen to preview emails or drop-down menus on Web sites.

The Galaxy Note II supports 4G LTE and HSPA+ networks and features Samsung’s 1.6GHz Exynos processor, 16 gigabytes of storage and a microSD expansion slot. It also has a larger 3,100mAh battery, but weighs a touch less than the Galaxy Note. Still, at 5.95 inches tall by 3.17 inches wide, it’s going to be mighty awkward to use as a phone.

The Galaxy Note II will be Samsung’s first smartphone to launch with Google’s latest Android 4.1 Jelly Bean mobile operating system.

Vimeo Lets Video Makers Hold Out a Tip Jar

Vimeo Lets Video Makers Hold Out a Tip Jar

Vimeo is a great place to see stunning videos. It’s not a great place for the people who make those videos to make money.

So, here’s an attempt to change that: Barry Diller’s video site is rolling out a “tip jar” feature, which is exactly what it sounds like: Video makers will have the chance to ask for donations, payable via credit cards and PayPal, after their clips have run.

And next year, the IAC-owned site will offer a feature that takes the opposite strategy: Content owners will be able to put up a pay wall and charge viewers before they see the clips.

Vimeo will take a 15 percent cut of all the tip jar donations. It hasn’t figured out what its revenue split will be for pre-video payments. But it’s going to have to be no more than the now-standard 30 percent that Apple gets from its partners.

This isn’t revolutionary stuff, by any means â€" you can find tip jars and pay walls all over the Web. But it is part of Vimeo CEO Kerry Trainor’s plan to build up the company’s revenue, which is primarily limited to subscription services it sells to pro-am video makers. Those customers make up a very small segment of the 75 million users that visit Vimeo each month.

How about ads? That works, to some degree, for nearly every other video site on the Web. But other than a few discrete banners, and one-offs like this awesome, interactive Old Spice thingy that ran last month, Vimeo doesn’t do ads â€" no pre-rolls, no mid-rolls, no overlays.

That’s nice for users, but it means that Trainor can’t do what YouTube, Hulu, et al, do, and share ad revenue with content makers. That might change one day: Trainor’s background is in advertising (at Yahoo, a digital magazine start-up, and AOL), and he says he’s open to ads if he can figure out how to make them work without wrecking the site. But it doesn’t seem to be a focus right now.

cheech color2 1280×720 from Vimeo Staff on Vimeo.

[Shutterstock/Robyn Mackenzie]

LG's New Flagship Phone, Optimus G, Coming to the U.S. By End of Year

It was the September smartphone event you all haven’t been waiting for: LG’s new flagship phone, the Optimus G.

As expected, the electronics company showed off its latest Android-powered smartphone at a New York City press event today, a day after LG unveiled the phone in Korea.

It might not be the new iPhone, but this is far from a budget phone. As my AllThingsD colleague Bonnie Cha writes, the 4G LTE, NFC-equipped phone is powered by Qualcomm’s quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processor, which promises speed, power and longer battery life. It has a 4.7-inch, 1,280 by 768-pixel HD touchscreen, a 13-megapixel camera on the back and a front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera. It’s running on Android’s Ice Cream Sandwich operating system â€" not the latest flavor of Android â€" and a feature called the QSlide lets users work in two screens at the same time.

The LG Optimus G goes on sale in Korea next week and will launch in other “key global markets” in October. It will come to the U.S. in the fourth quarter of this year, LG said today. Its exact price is still unclear.

But the question for LG isn’t necessarily whether this is a good phone; it’s how LG plans to market this phone in an increasingly crowded Android market, and with at handful of formidable smartphone competitors hitting stores this fall, including Nokia’s new Lumia phones, the Samsung Galaxy S III and, oh yes, the iPhone 5.

LG in recent months has tried to strike at both the low end and high end of the smartphone market; at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this year, the electronics maker showed off three phones called the L3, L5 and L7, which run on varying flavors of Android, as well as a range of high-end models, including a 3-D phone and the large-screened LG Optimus Vu. (The Optimus Vu came to the U.S. market this month as the LG Intuition, offered through Verizon Wireless.)

In April, the company launched the $ 99 Sprint-offered, family-friendly, LTE Viper phone, first announced at CES this past January.

In a recent comScore report on the U.S. mobile market, Samsung led the handset manufacturing market with 25.6 percent share. LG followed with an 18.8 percent share, down half a point, and Apple came in third with a 15.4 percent share, edging up 1.4 points from a previous report.

ZTE to Launch Smartphones Using Mozilla OS

Chinese telecommunications equipment maker ZTE Corp. plans to launch smartphones using a mobile operating system it developed with Mozilla, the U.S. software company behind the Firefox web browser, in the first quarter of next year.

The move is the latest indication that handset makers are looking beyond Google Inc.’s dominant Android mobile operating system as they try to diversify the software platforms for their smartphones and other mobile devices. While Apple Inc.’s iPhone uses its own iOS software, most other smartphones sold around the world are powered by Android.

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Cisco Defends Switch Turf

Cisco Systems Inc. watched as a start-up led by two of its former executives grabbed much of the market for high-speed networking gear favored by Wall Street traders. Now the Silicon Valley giant is preparing to fight back.

The target is Arista Networks Inc., a closely held company whose chairman is Andy Bechtolsheim, a celebrated hardware designer known for co-founding Sun Microsystems Inc. and becoming one of Google Inc.’s first investors. Its CEO is Jayshree Ullal, who once ran Cisco’s networking-hardware business.

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What's Next for GOOD Magazine? A Social Network.

GOOD Worldwide will today launch a new social activism site Good.is.

Famous for its printed magazine, GOOD has now turned its focus to a community site that allows members to publicly post stories and activities and to follow each other and their interests. But it actually looks more like a sparsely laid-out online magazine than a social network.

Unlike some other social networks (especially ones with a lot of users), Good.is has a global news feed of all its members that is curated by its editorial team. So there’s a non-personalized version of the site â€" again like a magazine.

CEO Ben Goldhirsh told me he wants Good.is to become “a global community of pragmatic idealists.” While potential members may have different causes and interests, “the problems we’re trying to tackle are extremely symbiotic,” he said.

A little more than a year ago, GOOD bought Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes’ Jumo, a cause-driven social network that didn’t take off.

Jumo was entirely shut down, perhaps indicating that a social network for activism is a tough draw, so it’s interesting to see GOOD trying to do something similar now. Goldhirsh said that the acquisition was about hiring talent and also gaining Hughes’ expertise as an advisor about what worked and what didn’t.

GOOD CEO Ben Goldhirsh

So what didn’t? “Jumo had a lot of focus on creating relationships between non-profits and individuals, but we think what’s fundamental is creating relationships between individuals and the people they respect,” Goldhirsh said.

GOOD laid off a significant portion of its editorial staff in June. Goldhirsh told me that the company has hired new contributors to replace them and is now back at about 80 employees.

“The layoff seats have been filled by content creators who are really excited about this changing paradigm,” is how he put it. What paradigm is that? It’s more about “activation” than media, Goldhirsh said.

“We were born not to be a media company forever,” Goldhirsh said. “We were born as a mission company forever.”

ITC Gives Google a Second Shot at Apple With Motorola Patents

Yet another smartphone patent dispute is headed to review at the U.S. International Trade Commission, and like many of those that have gone before it, this one has all too familiar players.

The ITC voted Tuesday to investigate a patent-infringement complaint brought against Apple by Google. Filed last month by Quinn Emanuel â€" the law firm that represented Samsung in its recent courtroom rout by Apple, the complaint alleges the iPhone maker violated seven patents Google acquired through its $ 12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility. Among accused devices: The iPhone 3GS; the iPhone 4 and 4S; the iPad 2 and 3; the Mac Pro, iMac, Mac mini, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air. In other words, a big chunk of Apple’s product line. Google is asking the ITC to ban the importation of all these devices, though that’s not its end game here. The company is really looking to chicken-wing Apple into negotiating a cross-licensing deal.

“We would like to settle these patent matters, but Apple’s unwillingness to work out a license leaves us little choice but to defend ourselves and our engineers’ innovations,” Google said in an August statement issued by Motorola.

A few things to remember here: The ITC’s decision to investigate Google’s claims is not a reflection of their merit. It’s pretty common for the agency to elect to consider complaints like these. This is the second time Motorola’s patents have been asserted against Apple in the ITC, and the first time things didn’t so go well. The ITC pretty much cleared Apple of infringement with respect to three patents and remanded investigation of a fourth.

So Google here is taking a run at Apple with patents that are essentially second choice to a first-choice group that hasn’t proven very strong. This is another chance for the company to prove that the $ 12.5 billion it spent to gain Motorola Mobility’s patent portfolio really will deliver the sort of IP protection Google claimed it would. As Google chief legal officer David Drummond said when the search behemoth first announced plans to acquire Motorola Mobility, “We believe we’ll be in a very good position to protect the Android ecosystem for all of our partners.”

Right now, I’m not sure “very good” is an accurate way to describe Google’s position with regard to protecting Android and the OEMs that use it with Motorola’s patents. Question is, will it be a year from now, when the ITC finally rules on this complaint?

Twitch Raises $15 Million to Be the YouTube of the Videogame World

Twitch Raises $15 Million to Be the YouTube of the Videogame World

Twitch, which was started by the people at Justin.TV, has raised more money to continue building an online video platform where viewers can watch live footage of videogames being played.

The experience can be analogous to watching a professional basketball or football game on TV, especially as videogames increasingly become a rival other major forms of entertainment.

The $ 15 million round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners. Alsop Louie Partners and Draper Associates also participated. The capital will go towards hiring more engineers to continue building out its platform and improving quality.

The videos run on its own platform, rather than a third-party site like YouTube, allowing it to exclusively target the hardcore gamer. Twitch said it now has more than 20 million viewers, who tune in every month to watch different channels based on games, like World of Warcraft, Diablo III, Starcraft and Borderlands 2. As part of the experience, commentators provide feedback in real-time.

The San Francisco company announced Twitch a year ago at E3, saying it would be an independent brand from Justin.TV. Five years prior to that, it was trying to build out a live video platform on the Web. Now, Twitch has nearly taken over.

“We launched Twitch a little over a year ago, and already we have more than 20 million unique viewers per month,” said Emmett Shear, CEO of Twitch. “Our current team has put us at the forefront of the live video game streaming movement, and we can now invest aggressively to support our growing community with new ways to stream, watch, and chat.”

Similar to live sports on TV, Twitch makes money by playing advertisements during the game play. It has also experimented with a subscription model, where fans pay a monthly fee. Additionally, the game players get paid to broadcast their videos on the site.

Also meddling in the space is Los Angeles-based Machinima, which also racks up millions of page views a month on other sites, including YouTube or Facebook.

Will Russia Ban YouTube?

By Gleb Bryanski

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Access to YouTube across Russia could be blocked under a new law that takes effect on November 1 if the portal does not remove a video mocking the Prophet Mohammad, the country's communications minister said on Tuesday.

The video, which sparked violent protests in many Muslim countries, has been deemed extremist by Russian prosecutors who have now asked the court to ban it.

Under new legislation, Internet sites carrying content banned in Russia would be included on a special register, after which Internet providers would have one day to block access.

"Because of this video, YouTube could be blocked throughout the territory of Russia," Communications Minister Nikolai Nikiforov, one of the opponents of the new law, wrote in his Twitter microblog. "If a law is passed it should be enforced."

Google Inc, the owner of YouTube, rejected a request by the White House to remove the video but decided to block it i n a number of Muslim countries including Egypt and Libya where U.S. embassies have been stormed by protesters. Russia is home to 20 million Muslims.

The court now has five days to make a ruling on whether the film is extremist but legal practice shows that on such matters Russian courts usually side with the prosecutors.

"If they abide by the court decision (and remove the video) no one will (need to) close them (YouTube) down," said parliament member Ruslan Gattarov from pro-Kremlin United Russia who first raised the issue with the prosecutors. "Do we have to wait until violence comes here?"

Google's Moscow office confirmed they received the prosecutors' warning but said that such matters are handled at the company's headquarters. Previously Russia has never blocked access to Google services.

Some influential Russian politicians, including former Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, blamed social networks and popular Internet services for helping to st ir dissent in developing countries including Russia.

Last year Russia's domestic security service called for access to encrypted communication providers such as Gmail, Hotmail and Skype, saying the uncontrolled use of such services could threaten national security.

Anti-Kremlin opposition groups, which staged the biggest protests during President Vladimir Putin's 12-year rule over the past several months, has extensively used Internet services to organize mass rallies and spread their message.

The Kremlin responded by rushing through parliament a string of restrictive laws which opposition described as a crackdown on dissent.

(Reporting by Gleb Bryanski; Editing by Rosalind Russell)

Related on HuffPost:

Will Russia Ban YouTube?

By Gleb Bryanski

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Access to YouTube across Russia could be blocked under a new law that takes effect on November 1 if the portal does not remove a video mocking the Prophet Mohammad, the country's communications minister said on Tuesday.

The video, which sparked violent protests in many Muslim countries, has been deemed extremist by Russian prosecutors who have now asked the court to ban it.

Under new legislation, Internet sites carrying content banned in Russia would be included on a special register, after which Internet providers would have one day to block access.

"Because of this video, YouTube could be blocked throughout the territory of Russia," Communications Minister Nikolai Nikiforov, one of the opponents of the new law, wrote in his Twitter microblog. "If a law is passed it should be enforced."

Google Inc, the owner of YouTube, rejected a request by the White House to remove the video but decided to block it i n a number of Muslim countries including Egypt and Libya where U.S. embassies have been stormed by protesters. Russia is home to 20 million Muslims.

The court now has five days to make a ruling on whether the film is extremist but legal practice shows that on such matters Russian courts usually side with the prosecutors.

"If they abide by the court decision (and remove the video) no one will (need to) close them (YouTube) down," said parliament member Ruslan Gattarov from pro-Kremlin United Russia who first raised the issue with the prosecutors. "Do we have to wait until violence comes here?"

Google's Moscow office confirmed they received the prosecutors' warning but said that such matters are handled at the company's headquarters. Previously Russia has never blocked access to Google services.

Some influential Russian politicians, including former Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, blamed social networks and popular Internet services for helping to st ir dissent in developing countries including Russia.

Last year Russia's domestic security service called for access to encrypted communication providers such as Gmail, Hotmail and Skype, saying the uncontrolled use of such services could threaten national security.

Anti-Kremlin opposition groups, which staged the biggest protests during President Vladimir Putin's 12-year rule over the past several months, has extensively used Internet services to organize mass rallies and spread their message.

The Kremlin responded by rushing through parliament a string of restrictive laws which opposition described as a crackdown on dissent.

(Reporting by Gleb Bryanski; Editing by Rosalind Russell)

Related on HuffPost:

X PRIZE Foundation: Liquid Robotics to Usher Era of Smart Oceans With Autonomous Robots

By Jason Dorrier
Contributing Writer, Singularity University.

When Liquid Robotics' Ed Lu dreams, he sees thousands of his firm's Wave Gliders blanketing the sea--a smart grid for the ocean. It may yet be a dream, but Lu's vision isn't terribly far fetched. The firm's Wave Glider robots have logged 100,000 miles, braved 20 foot seas, and faced gale force winds. One of its gliders, G2, survived and transmitted data 60 miles from the eye of Hurricane Isaac. Proof of concept? Check. The next challenge for Liquid Robotics is convincing their target market to give the tech a try. But beyond scientists, just who exactly is their market?

That's what Lu, chief of innovative applications at Liquid Robotics, is trying to figure out. See him pitch the Wave Glider at this recent TEDx talk:

You may remember how the Wave Glider works from our first Liquid Robotics article, but here's a refresher. On the surface, it's a surfboard (the float) about seven feet long and loaded with solar panels and a customizable sensor array. Below the surface, the glider converts wave motion into forward thrust to tow the float--no fuel, no fuss.

Lu is no stranger to tough problems and innovative solutions. He's an electrical engineer, astrophysicist, and ex-astronaut. Now at Liquid Robotics, he sees a wide assortment of applications--commercial, government, and research.

Continuous, real-time ocean data would make ocean commerce safer. Nations could better guard exclusive economic zones. The craft could gather intelligence data for defense purposes--it has no radar cross-section and makes no noise.

The best argument in favor of the tech is its combination of mobility and low cost.

We already have ocean sensors, but they're expensive. Ships cost $ 10,000 to $ 100,000 a day to operate. Moored deep water buoys are cheaper but still run $ 200,000 to $ 1 million a year. Clients can buy a Wave Glider outright for $ 200,000 or lease glider time at $ 1,000 to $ 3,000 a day.

The glider is more mobile than a buoy and can stay out longer than a ship (in any weather) for a fraction of the cost.

At the moment, 50% of Liquid Robotics clients lease data, so many of the gliders are piloted from the firm's headquarters in Sunnyvale. "All [clients] have to do is define their business problem, and we provide them with the data they need."

The last few years have been a flurry of financing, engineering, testing, and publicity--including recent articles in the New York Times, Wired, The Wall Street Journal, and Forbes.

In 2011, the firm received $ 22 million in venture financing from VantagePoint Capital partners. Later in the year, they embarked on a 300 day, 2.25 million data point, cross Pacific journey. The gliders made it from California to Hawaii intact and have since embarked on the second leg of their trip, two to Japan and two to Australia.

In all, Liquid Robotics "has deployed more than 100 of the robots around the world on missions for climate scientists, the oil industry, and the US military." But now their tech is proven, they are looking to expand that number dramatically.

In June, the firm signed onto a joint venture, Liquid Robotics Oil & Gas, with energy giant Schlumberger. The gliders will be used for seismic monitoring, measuring currents for rig building, and detecting oil seepage from drilling. The new venture should significantly raise the number of operational units in the field.

In August, the firm started Liquid Robotics Federal--a wholly owned subsidiary led by Beltway veteran Grant Palmer--to pursue federal defense contracts in need of "cost-effective solutions to persistent surveillance, monitoring, and communications on the seas and coastlines."

Researchers are warming up to the technology too. NOAA is testing a Wave Glider named Alex in the ocean north of Puerto Rico this fall, hoping to gather crucial hurricane data to improve forecasting. Meanwhile, the Ocean Tracking Network is using gliders to track fish--a difficult task. Unlike aquatic animals that breathe, fish don't surface often (maybe never) to ping tracking satellites.

All told, prospects look good for these autonomous ocean going robots. But how Alex does in hurricane season will be a key test in the harshest conditions. Glider G2 performed well in a Category 1 hurricane. What about in rougher weather? Will the tether hold? Might the system get flipped and tangled in the milieu?

Also, they're not deal breakers, but the gliders do have some weaknesses.

Wildlife encounters are likely to increase as they get more machines in the water--a shark already damaged one glider. Further, they aren't the most powerful vehicles. The top speed is just two knots. "If there's a hellish current coming, we could be cutting through the water rapidly, but going backwards."

There may also be a latitudinal limit to the technology. Operating in the Arctic Circle could sap the batteries during long cloudy stretches--without power, there's no way to steer. And being constrained to forward motion could prove troublesome in icy seas.

That said, Liquid Robotics isn't standing still. The next generation of gliders are already under development at the firm's Kona laboratories.

Roger Hine notes they are focusing on "knots, watts, and carrying capacity." Clients may currently choose from 65 sensors, but the lab is testing 152 more. CEO Bill Vass says, "We're working on putting a mass spectrometer on it" and "a full genetics lab that will suck in salt water and count the microbes and break down their DNA in real time." Ambitious!

Whatever the ultimate configuration, the technology is proving viable and useful.

Maybe one day in the not-too-distant future Ed Lu's dream will come true. He says, "You manage what you measure. Well, if you don't know what's going on out in the oceans, how can you manage it?"

A smart grid is great, but we might soon have a smart ocean.

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This material published courtesy of Singularity University.

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