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18 Jan 2012 08:53

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Offbeat: A witness to a murder-suicide was able to escape — and she’s only 7 years old.

  • This young girl witnessed a heinous crime, yet she was able to provide great insight into that fateful day. She may be young, but she’s extremely bright, articulate and courageous.
  • Fresno, Calif. Police Department Deputy Chief Keith Foster • Regarding a child who escaped a triple murder-suicide. The 7-year-old was able to leave the scene of this bloody crime unharmed. She had stayed the night at the house of her neighbor, Aide Mendez, the woman police say was behind the murder-suicide. The young girl witnessed at least one of the murders; Mendez allegedly shot her two children and also killed her cousin before killing herself. She also shot and stabbed her husband, but he survived the attack and is recovering in a local hospital. What could have caused Mendez to go through with all of that? While we may not know the complete truth, investigators discovered an iPad video recording of Mendez and her cousin smoking methamphetamine hours before the deadly incident. source
Posted by samimain • 0 Comments • Permalink


02 Dec 2011 12:55

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Tech: RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook is in total flop, hurt-the-bottom-line mode

  • 150,000 tablets number of BlackBerry PlayBooks RIM sold in the third quarter; to compare, RIM sold 14.1 million smartphones
  • $450 million size of the financial hit RIM took in the third quarter, partly as a result of lackluster PlayBook sales source
  • » Why is the PlayBook flopping? If you asked RIM, you’d get an answer that sounds pretty jargon-y: “Recent shifts in the competitive dynamics of the tablet market and a delay in the release of the PlayBook OS 2.0 software.” Here’s the English version of that answer: “The iPad, the Nook Tablet and the Kindle Fire.” But that’s just us talking. Meanwhile, RIM has been trimming the price of the PlayBook from an absurd $500 to as low as $199 — in part to clear inventory for the next version of the device, though we’re guessing the fact that other seven-inch tablets are selling for roughly that price doesn’t help.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink


12 Oct 2011 20:34

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Tech: iPhone owners minorly annoyed; BlackBerry owners pissed off

  • bad iPhone and iPad owners had some issues installing iOS version 5, released today, on their new devices, probably due to mass-install glut. (We had an issue with the install briefly — we threw it on our non-jailbroken iPad — but we got it to work on the second try.)
  • worse However, compared to the issues that BlackBerry owners have had over the past couple of days, that was cake. RIM says that the rolling blackouts were caused by a “core switch failure,” whatever that means. Oh no, what are all the policy wonks going to do!? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink


30 Sep 2011 14:58

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Tech: Report: Amazon’s Kindle Fire losing money with every single device

  • $199 the amount the Amazon Kindle Fire, launched earlier this week, costs
  • $209.63 the amount the Amazon Kindle Fire's parts are estimated to cost source
  • » Loss leader vs. straight-up leader: Amazon knows that the thing that was going to get the Kindle Fire to sell was the price, and it appears that even though the device is going to sell at a $10 loss per unit, they’ll make that back quickly through the sale of music and other stuff. This is a situation unlike that of Apple, which sells its devices at a profit and makes money through the sale of content. But that said, Jeff Bezos is looking particularly Jobsian these days.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink


28 Sep 2011 23:56

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Tech: Voltaire? Really, Kindle? That’s how you’re gonna play this?

  • “Fire” still looks cool, though: We kind of hate the pretentiousness of this entire ad. Amazon just released this ad to promote the new Kindle Fire … which appears to imply that a Voltaire quote inspired the name. Steve Jobs is probably cursing the hipster marketers at Amazon for just being so dang indie. How can the iPad compete with that?! source
Posted by samimain • 0 Comments • Permalink


28 Sep 2011 09:58

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Tech: Amazon’s Kindle Fire: What it has and doesn’t have

  • included Amazon’s foray into the whole tablet thing (photo here) will be a totally affordable $199 and based on a slick Android-based interface that’s been face-lifted specifically for this freakin’ tablet.
  • missing It’s only 7 inches — a bit small for you iPad fans — and lacks such amenities as a microphone or camera. On top of this, the device is wifi-only — no 3G. Is no 3G a deal-breaker, guys? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink


20 Jul 2011 22:33

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Tech: App lets iPhone users see all of your drunken mistakes

  • A new iPhone app allows you to view real-time video feeds from inside local bars, so you can, in the words of the creators, “see what a venue looks like, to get a head count.” Cool idea, but that means that if you’re in one of said bars, everything you do is being streamed online—whether you know it or not. Bars that opt-in to this aren’t required to tell patrons that they’re being filmed, and the footage is accessible from the company’s website, so it’s not just limited to iPhone users. The creators defend the app’s integrity, saying that “the point of the product is not to make a stalker utility.” Which is a vapid defense, of course, because the intent behind a product has no bearing on the manner in which it’s capable of being used. We suspect Apple might pull this one before too long. source
Posted by Seth Millstein • 0 Comments • Permalink


 

22 Jun 2011 09:55

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Tech: Samsung’s legal ploy to see the new iPhone early fails miserably

  • lawsuit A while back, Apple sued Samsung, claiming that they basically ripped off the iPhone’s designs for their phones, a charge Samsung denies.
  • evidence In an effort to defend itself, Samsung’s lawyers requested that they get access to the new iPhone and iPad before their release. No, really.
  • denial Unfortunately for them, the court ruled against Samsung; if you want to see the new iPhone, you have to find it in a bar like Gizmodo did. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink


09 Jun 2011 13:22

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Tech: HP’s TouchPad: Similar style, similar price to the iPad

  • $499.99 the cost of the new HP TouchPad's 16GB model
  • $599.99 the cost of the TouchPad's 32GB model; sound familiar? source
  • » Openly gunning for Apple’s market: The TouchPad, coming out on July 1, doesn’t just share the same cost as the iPad; it’s also the same size, and has many other striking similarities as well. However, what does set it apart is WebOS, which will also make its way to HP laptops eventually. It will be interesting to see how this feature-for-feature cage match pans out.
Posted by Justin Jones • 0 Comments • Permalink


09 Jun 2011 11:21

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Tech: Apple backs down on controversial in-app subscription policy

  • Apparently they heard that they lost The Financial Times to this mess. While Apple didn’t back down from the 70/30 split that gave publishers pause, they did change a rule that won’t force companies to offer app subscriptions at the same price as an outside subscription — or if they don’t want to, offer an Apple-sanctioned subscription at all. Apparently, developers’ loud grumbling about the policy (which led the Financial Times to create a HTML5 version of their iPad app, shown above) appears to have gotten through to the company, which updated their App Store Review Guidelines earlier this week ahead of a June 30 deadline. The differences:
  • How it read before “Apps can read or play approved content (magazines, newspapers, books, audio, music, video) that is sold outside of the app, for which Apple will not receive any portion of the revenues, provided that the same content is also offered in the app using IAP at the same price or less than it is offered outside the app. This applies to both purchased content and subscriptions. ”
  • How it reads now“Apps can read or play approved content (specifically magazines, newspapers, books, audio, music, and video) that is subscribed to or purchased outside of the app, as long as there is no button or external link in the app to purchase the approved content. Apple will not receive any portion of the revenues for approved content that is subscribed to or purchased outside of the app.” source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink


 
 
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