Zuckerberg donates $500mln to charity

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of social networking giant Facebook has said that he is donating nearly 500 million dollars in stock to a Silicon Valley charity to fund health and education issues. Zuckerberg donated 18 million Facebook shares, valued at 498.8 million dollars based on their Tuesday closing price. The beneficiary is the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a nonprofit that works with donors to allocate their gifts, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. According to the paper, this is Zuckerberg's largest donation to date.

He pledged 100 million dollars in Facebook stock to Newark, New Jersey, public schools in 2010, before his company went public earlier this year. In a Facebook post, Zuckerberg, 28, said he is ‘proud of the work’ done by the foundation that his Newark donation launched, called Startup: Education, which has helped open charter schools, high schools and others, the report said. -ANI Photo: Reuters

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Instagram denies changing privacy policy to sell users' photos to advertisers

Popular photo-sharing service Instagram, that has been acquired by Facebook, has denied that it has changed its privacy policy to give it the right to sell users’ photos to advertisers without notification. It said instead that users had incorrectly interpreted its revised terms of serviced, which it blamed on its ‘confusing’ choice of language. “To be clear: it is not our intention to sell your photos,” the firm said. According to the BBC, Instagram chief executive Kevin Systrom said in a blog post that it is the firm’s ‘mistake that this language is confusing.’

“We are working on updated language in the terms to make sure this is clear,” he said. According to the report, compulsory changes to Instagram''s terms of service are due to come into effect on January 16. The originally proposed new wording that caused the controversy included, ‘You hereby grant to Instagram a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to use the content that you post on or through the service.’ The terms also stated that ‘a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos, and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.’ -ANI

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Apple iOS upgrades increase following availability of Google Maps

Upgrades to Apple's iOS 6 have increased by 29 per cent after Google Maps were made available on the operating system, it has been claimed. Mobile advertising service MoPub said that adoption of iOS 6 increased by around 13 per cent last week, but there was a bigger increase at the weekend. MoPub monitors 12,000 iOS apps and said that the percentage of users running those apps on iOS 6 increased by 29 per cent in the five days after Google released Google Maps for iPhone, the Telegraph reports.

Google had provided the default maps application for Apple's iPhone since the device first went on sale in 2007. However, the release of iOS 6 in September saw Apple replace Google Maps with its own maps app. But Apple Maps was quickly revealed to be unreliable, filled with errors and omissions. -ANI

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Twitter tops 200 mln active users mark

The number of active users on Twitter has topped 200 million mark, the micro blogging site has announced. Twitter revealed the news via tweet on the firm’s official account. “There are now more than 200M monthly active @twitter users. You are the pulse of the planet. We're grateful for your ongoing support!” it said.

According to Gulf News, the number was the first official estimate from Twitter since it claimed 140 million active users. Twitter offered no details on the latest update, but in the past has said the majority of active users were in the United States. According to the report, earlier this year, a French-based research firm said over 500 million people are on the micro-blogging site, with Americans and Brazilians the most connected. Another group, Sys-Con media, estimated last month that Twitter had over 465 million accounts and that the number of daily tweets had topped 175 million, the report added. -ANI

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Apple loses bid to ban Samsung products in US

A US judge has denied a legal request by Apple to ban sales of Samsung smartphones that the American tech giant said illegally used its technology. The decision is part of a series of rulings that US Judge Lucy Koh said she is releasing over a period of several weeks to address the many legal issues raised in the case. Her ruling comes after Apple was awarded 1.05 billion dollars in damages this year, the Daily Express reports.

Apple had urged the judge to permanently ban the US sales of eight Samsung smartphone models that a jury said in August illegally used Apple technology, while also seeking to add millions more to the award. Earlier this month Judge Koh appeared ready to trim the billion-dollar jury verdict Apple won over Samsung Electronics, but gave no indication as to by how much. Adding to the legal tangle, Apple filed a second lawsuit earlier this year, alleging that Samsung''s newer products are unfairly using Apple's technology. According to the report, Apple lawyer Harold McElhinny claimed earlier this year that Samsung wilfully made a business decision to copy Apple''s iPad and iPhone, and he called the jury''s 1.05 billion-dollar award a ‘slap in the wrist’.

Samsung lawyer Charles Verhoeven has argued that Apple was trying to tie up Samsung in courts around the world rather than competing with it head-on, the report said. The Korean mobile maker has also claimed that it was deprived of a fair trial in a court about 12 miles from Apple''s California, headquarters, the report added. -ANI

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Samsung unveil Galaxy Grand

Samsung has announced that it plans to release a five-inch phone called Galaxy Grand. The phone will have a screen with WVGA resolution and run Android Jelly Bean. The innards have a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor, 1GB RAM, 8GB onboard storage, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4, microSD reader, and 2,100mAh battery.

Samsung will be releasing two models of this phone: the GT-I9082, which will be support two SIM cards and will be the first to release. This will be followed by the release of GT-I9080 that will carry slot for a single SIM card.

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Nokia giving CES a miss

WPDang reports that Nokia will be giving Consumer Electronics Expo a skip, and instead they will be gearing up for Mobile World Congress, in February. While there is no official word or explanation from Nokia, it would not be too far-fetched to think that the company may not have something significant to showcase at this point. Nokia is sending their NAVTEQ team to CES, so the company will be present in at least some capacity.

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Windows Phone 7.8 starts rolling out to Lumia 800

The Windows Phone 7.8 update may soon reach other devices as not long ago, the Lumia 800 from Nokia received this update via the Zune desktop software.

Nokia has also recently unveiled two new devices which come pre-loaded with Windows Phone 7.8 and these include the Lumia 510 and the Lumia 505. This update brings some of the Windows Phone 8 features to these existing devices and comes with a few improvements.

Some new features include the new start screen, three different tile sizes, new boot screen and also Nokia’s proprietary camera lens update. It is unclear whether the update has started rolling out in all regions. It will eventually arrive on all devices and we might have to wait for a short time before it happens.

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Mid-ranged Windows Phone 8 smartphone HTC 8S now available in India

After officially announcing the smartphone for India over a month ago, the HTC 8S has finally launched in the India market, it is a mid-ranged Windows Phone 8 based device.

The HTC 8S is priced at Rs. 19,359 and it is the third Windows Phone 8 based device to arrive in the Indian market after the HTC 8X and Samsung ATIV S respectively.

This Windows Phone 8 based smartphone features a 4-inch WVGA display, a 5 megpaixel rear camera, 1GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor which is bundle with an Adreno 305 GPU. It also includes Beats Audio integration however unlike the HTC 8X it does not have a built-in amplifier.

It has 4GB of built-in storage, expandable memory via a microSD card and a 1,700 mAh battery. The device will feature dual-tone body and while it is available in a various colors, currently onlyone color (Atlantic Blue) is available with the online retailer.

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Ousted Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson leading new Amazon-like startup

Former Yahoo chief executive Scott Thompson, who lost his job earlier this year when it turned out he didn’t earn the computer science degree on his resume, is now leading a new startup. The San Jose Mercury News interviewed Thompson about his new role as the CEO of e-commerce startup ShopRunner.

The company offers Amazon-like shipping services and Thompson described it as “Amazon Prime for everybody else.” According to the Washington Post, ShopRunner is two years old firm and it has 60 employees. Thompson told the Merc, he was fascinated at the challenge of growing the company into something big. Online firm eBay, owner of PalPal, which Thompson used to run, owns a stake in ShopRunner, the paper said. Thompson didn’t receive severance from Yahoo, but he did get 7 million dollars in “walking-away money,” according to the Merc. -ANI

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Apple shares drop below $500 first time since February

Tech giant Apple’s share price has fallen below the 500 dollars threshold for the first time since February. The iPhone maker joined the exclusive 500 dollars-a-share club in February after record sales of its devices, and briefly surpassed 700 dollars a share in September. Analysts, however, warned Apple could be losing momentum as it briefly slipped as low as 497 dollars in pre-market trading, the Telegraph reports.

It returned to 508.92 dollars before the markets opened and closed at 518.83 dollars, the paper said. According to the paper, the drop came as analysts slashed their target prices for Apple stock, following reports the Californian technology giant is cutting orders of the iPhone5, indicating sluggish sales. Citigroup made the most aggressive downgrade, reducing its target price on Apple shares 675 to 575 dollars, saying reduced orders highlight the possible risks for investors. “[They] bring into question the strength of the iPhone5 and refocus investors on to the risks in the Apple story. As such, we see the likelihood of any near-term rally as diminished,” the firm said. -ANI Pic: Reuters

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ASUS squeeze GTX 680 onto two-slot design

ASUS has released NVIDIA’s GTX 680 and GTX 670 based video cards with DirectCU II components and 4GB of video memory. While this configuration is not new, ASUS been able get the size of the card to take two slots on the motherboard, down from three slots of the previous design. The GTX 680 has a new version of DirectCU II thermal design, and comes with other standard features of DirectCU II for overclocking and longevity of the card.

The 5GB of DDR5 video memory has been clocked at 6008MHz, which is double that of the previous models of GTX 680 and GTX 670 from ASUS. This lets the card crank out frames at 2560X1440 (WQHD) resolution. Before taxes, the GTX670 costs Rs.33,500, and the GTX680 Rs.39,650.

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Leaked: Blackberry 10 screenshots

Alleged screenshots of Blackberry 10 have leaked through Vietnamese website Tihnte, which shows the system is getting a complete overhaul. The new UI design and features brings the OS more in line with competition like Windows Phone, iOS, and Android. RIM will apparently be adding a voice-activated assistant that is quickly becoming a staple with smartphones. The screenshots also show the BlackBerry 10 Hub, which is promised to be nexus for all social networks. Hit the source links to view more images.

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Famed political operative Mark Penn to 'bulldoze' Google

Political operative Mark Penn, who worked for both Bill and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaigns, has been hired by Microsoft for ‘strategic and special projects’, which means targeting arch rival Google, says a report. Since Penn was put in charge of “strategic and special projects” at Microsoft in August, much of his job has involved efforts to trip up Google, which Microsoft has failed to dislodge from its perch atop the lucrative Internet search market. Penn created a holiday commercial, in which Microsoft criticizes Google for polluting the quality of its shopping search results with advertisements. “Don’t get scroogled,” it warns.

According to the New York Times, the campaigns are part of a broader effort at Microsoft to give its marketing the nimbleness of a political campaign, where a candidate can turn an opponent’s gaffe into a damaging commercial within hours. They are also a sign of the company’s mounting frustration with Google after losing billions of dollars a year on its search efforts, while losing ground to Google in the browser and smartphones markets and other areas, the paper said. Jill Hazelbaker, a Google spokeswoman, declined to comment on Microsoft’s actions, the paper said. But she said that while Google also employed lobbyists and marketers, “our focus is on Google and the positive impact our industry has on society, not the competition,” the paper added. -ANI

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Instagram 'verbally agreed' to $525 mln Twitter deal before $1 bln Facebook acquisition

Photo-sharing app Instagram’s CEO Kevin Systrom had verbally agreed to sell his photo-sharing company to Twitter Inc for 525 dollars million in March, weeks before he accepted a one billion dollars offer from Facebook, it has emerged. According to a report by the New York Times, Twitter executives had handed Systrom a term sheet outlining the details of the proposed deal.

But Systrom later told California state regulators under oath that his company had not received any ‘formal offers or term sheets’ from potential buyers aside from Facebook. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg ultimately acquired Instagram after pushing through a cash-and-stock deal just weeks before Facebook''s May initial public offering. Relations between Twitter, Instagram and Facebook have soured since Facebook successfully swooped for the photo service, Fox News reports. Earlier this month Instagram shut off a functionality that allowed Twitter to display Instagram pictures, while Twitter introduced its own photo color-filters to compete with Instagram. -ANI

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Smartphone application downloads hit 81bln mark: Report

Mobile application storefronts have collectively distributed a total of 81 billion smartphone and tablet apps as of end-September 2012, according to a report. The recent market study from ABI Research showed that out of those, 89 percent were downloaded from native storefronts that come with the device’s operating system.
 
“The current status quo is based on storefronts that the operating system vendors provide as part of the OS experience, and there is no evidence that this would change in the future,” Enterprise Innovation quoted Aapo Markkanen, ABI Research senior analyst, as saying. “A year ago it still looked like that, for example, mobile operators could find a viable business case in the curation of Android apps, but that opportunity evaporated once Google got its storefront act together,” he added.

According to the report, Markkanen said that it makes sense for operators to distribute apps only under special circumstances, such as the those springing up in China. Similarly, it’s unlikely that the universal, catch-all nature of app distribution would start breaking up into smaller niche storefronts. “Running a user-friendly app distribution channel is expensive. Besides the adequate hosting and billing systems it takes quite a lot of human labor, since successful app discovery requires some form of editorial approach,” Markkanen said. “The opportunity for smaller storefronts built around selected categories is therefore limited,” he added. -ANI

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Nokia Lumia 505 now official, runs Windows Phone 7.8

Nokia’s Lumia 505, spotted earlier was recently officially announced in Mexico. It looks quite similar to the Lumia 800, but and there are a few key differences between the two.

The Lumia 505 sports a 3.7-inch AMOLED clear black display of WVGA(800x480 pixels) resolution and runs Windows Phone 7.8 right out of the box. It has an 8 megapixel EDOF camera with autofocus and the device is likely powered by an 800MHz Snapdragon S1 processor.

In terms of the connectivity it supports 3G, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n/, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR and GPS/A-GPS. The Lumia 505 has 4GB of internal storage, expandable memory via a microSD card and 256MB of RAM. It is equipped with a 1,300 mAh battery.

The Nokia Lumia 505 will come in Black, Pink and Red colors and it will be heading to Telcel in Mexico. It is still unclear whether the device will launch in other regions. The pricing and availability is yet to be announced.

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Google hires famed futurist Ray Kurzweil as Director of Engineering

Internet search giant Google has hired Ray Kurzweil, the famed inventor and futurist, to work on ‘some of the hardest problems in computer science’. Kurzweil announced that he would join the tech firm officially on Monday. According to the Wall Street Journal, Kurzweil is best known for his theories about “The Singularity,” or the point in the future when technology becomes so advanced that it starts outsmarting humans on its own.

The hiring of Kurzweil builds on existing ties between the author and Google, the report said. Google has partly funded Kurzweil’s Singularity University, an academic program launched a few years ago in Silicon Valley to prep students for a tech-heavy future and such concepts as nanotechnology and robotics, it added. According to the report, Kurzweil described his new title at Google as Director of Engineering. “In 1999, I said that in about a decade we would see technologies such as self-driving cars and mobile phones that could answer your questions, and people criticized these predictions as unrealistic,” he wrote on ablog post. “Fast forward a decade–Google has demonstrated self-driving cars, and people are indeed asking questions of their Android phones,” he added. -ANI

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Lava Xolo A800: A dual-SIM for Rs.12K

Lava has released a new dual-SIM model of Android phone, called Xolo A800 that is currently retaining through online merchants for about Rs.11,999. The phone’s dual-SIM system supports GSM as well as CDMA networks, which is something uncommon in this category. The display is an IPS-grade screen of 4.5 inches and 960X540px resolution.

The phone runs-off a dual-core processor from MediaTek that has been clocked at 1GHz, and 512MB of RAM. Other specs include 8MP/VGA cameras, 1600mAh batteries, 4GB onboard storage, microSD card reader, and connectivity over 3G, Bluetooth, GPS, and Wi-Fi.

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Karbonn release a 6-inch Android phablet

Online retailer Saholic has a Karbonn A30 listed for a release on December 17, with a price-tag of Rs.10,990. The A30 gets Android ICS, 1GHz dual-core processor, 8MP/1.3MP cameras, and 2500mAh. Since we haven’t yet heard from Karbonn about this phone, there is limited information about its specs. What is known is that the phone will be capable of connecting over 3G, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi; and that it will ship in silver and white colors.

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