… may be much cheaper thanks to this service so consider using it. You also get local Spanish number !

GENEVA (Reuters) - Food safety experts agreed for the first time on the qualities defining a tomato, in a first step toward an international code on preventing fruit and vegetable contamination.

Using speech analytics, the technology identifies and masks credit card numbers and other sensitive information in audio recordings.

I found this article and thought I would pass it along

"and there are more than 100 million, based on total sales -- have plenty of choices when it comes to a portable docking station with built-in speakers."

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Contributed by Bryant Banks

The big brain over in the google mobile garage is chuckling right now as Apple amuses the crowd…

gps, 3G, 3rd party apps - voip, ebay, sling, etc… yadda yadda… my phone could do all that 2 years ago”, mutters the brain. “But yes, the iPhone is much prettier and shiny and I thank you from the bottom of my heart”, the brain goes on…

“Apple you are creating my market for me. That is really nice of you. Oh, and an extra special thank you for reducing the price, that just validates and solidifes my thinking (but I’ll keep that to myself). Thanks again and keep up the good work.” she continues.

-the google big mobile brain

PS oh, and the brains over at RIM and MSFT are chuckling… or maybe they are shaking - not sure on that just yet

Microsoft:
Microsoft Announces New Zune Pass Music Subscription Model  —  Consumers can now keep the tracks they love.  —  Zune, Microsoft Corp.'s digital music and entertainment service, today announced landmark agreements with major and independent music labels to bring significant new value to the subscription music model.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Ecos Consulting firm have published a joint study which focuses on the energy consumption of the current gen consoles: Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, and PlayStation 3.

To a degree, we can call each of these consoles a powerhouse in their own right: they generate cool graphics, keep us entertained, and make life as we know it generally fun. But to call each of them a "powerhouse", in the most literal sense (i.e. in the realm of energy consumption), then that's the question, ain't it?

The NRDC has published the findings of their research in a document called "Lowering the Cost of Play: Improving the Energy Efficiency of Video Game Consoles". Based on their results, the PS3 remains as the most power-hungry - energy-hungry, rather - console there is. Then the Xbox 360, followed by the Nintendo Wii.

The document is a rather interesting read, and somehow gets every point across without having to step on fanboy toes. While I'd like to outline everything they've come up with, for brevity's sake (you can read the document yourself at your own leisure), we'll throw in this chart. The chart below speaks for itself.

What I like about this study is that it takes into account the different versions of the consoles in their lifetime. Also, they've given some suggestions - practical and reasonable suggestions - to manufacturers, game developers, and gamers themselves for ways to be more mindful of energy consumption.

Their conclusion is sound and simple, without being too uptight and demanding:

The single most effective way to save energy is to power down your system after saving your game if necessary when not actively playing. If you own a console with a powersaving feature such as auto power-off after a preset time, use it.

Ting Ting Ting! Note to all students out there readying a paper on video games - this could be a vital resource for you! Unlike the other study on the civic effects of video games, this document from the NRDC is merely two pages long, making it an easy read. And I strongly suggest that you do - whether you're writing a paper on it or not.

---

Related articles:

• Bet you didn't know: video games are good for you; study shows social, political, civic effects
• Video Game Console Energy Consumption - Who's the Energy Hog? (2006)
• Consumer group rates appliance power consumption, PS3 one of the highest
  

RIM BlackBerry Storm More Photos - View Specs

Verizon Wireless will launch the BlackBerry Storm on Nov. 21 for $200 with a two-year contract.

The BlackBerry Storm is the first touch screen BlackBerry with the world's first "clickable" touch screen. It also supports multi-touches, taps, slides and other touch screen gestures to easily highlight, scroll, pan and zoom.

The BlackBerry Storm's integrated accelerometer automatically switch between landscape and portrait modes. Users can navigate websites with the touch screen interface, double tapping to zoom in and sliding a fingers to scroll and pan. The browser has built-in RSS support, so new content can be automatically pushed to users.

The BlackBerry Storm will be available beginning Nov. 21 in stores and online for $199.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate with a new two-year customer agreement.

- RIM BlackBerry Storm Specs

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Google co-founder Sergey Brin has paid $5 million to secure a seat on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, officials said Wednesday.

Kenny Howe from Ackerly,TX wrote:

Did anyone else see this article about iphone?

Meter helps rate radio pull (Poughkeepsie Journal)
"Forget the iPod. The Portable People Meter, another pocket-sized gadget, is about to change the broadcast radio industry forever. Arbitron, the company that tallies listeners so broadcasters can set advertising rates, is moving away from paper diaries."

Here's the full article

National Geographic, publisher of the iconic magazine of the same name, announced a new division Tuesday. National Geographic Games will publish and develop games for consoles, handheld systems, mobile systems and online platforms. The games will be developed and published with partners Namco Bandai Games America and Sony Computer Entertainment. "I was very excited to read about National Geographic's game efforts this morning. Using games to communicate and educate while also entertain is an area that is vastly underexplored," said video game consultant Mark DeLoura.

… for Brits to emigrate to. Amazing how many Brits move there.

Contemporary Culture : Our Relationships with Cellular/Mobile phones - Prudent Press Agency (press release)

Contemporary Culture : Our Relationships with Cellular/Mobile phones Prudent Press Agency (press release), Netherlands - 8 hours ago They save us time, they give us the convenience of being more mobile and at times our Cellular/Mobile phones can make us feel safer. …

Source: news.google.com

Garmin Mobile XT turns phones into GPS navigators for $99 - infoSync World

Digitaltrends.com

Garmin Mobile XT turns phones into GPS navigators for $99 infoSync World, Norway - 6 hours ago This mobile phone software application seamlessly pairs the phone's built-in GPS with Garmin's software so that customers have the benefits of navigation … Garmin unveils smartphone GPS software Kansas City Star Garmin's New Software Turns Smartphones Into GPS Devices InformationWeek Garmin Mobile XT Aims At GPS Phones Digitaltrends.com Twice (subscription) all 18 news articles

Source: news.google.com

Samsung Unveils Its iPhone Rival - PC World

TechGadgets.in

Samsung Unveils Its iPhone Rival PC World - Oct 2, 2007 Ltd. and audio product maker Bang & Olufsen on Tuesday unveiled their latest joint music-mobile phone, Serenata, which holds 4G bytes of songs and has a … Bang & Olufsen and Samsung Officially Launch the Serenata Music Phone TechGadgets.in Serenata by Samsung and Bang & Olufsen LetsGoMobile (press release) Serenata Dialing in on iPhone TMCnet TECH.BLORGE.com all 48 news articles

Source: news.google.com

Vindu's View: It's time to open up mobile phone networks - San Jose Mercury News

Vindu's View: It's time to open up mobile phone networks San Jose Mercury News,  USA - 10 hours ago That might have been fine back when cell phones couldn't do much more than make a call. Today, mobile phones are pocket computers and ought to be as open as … 3 working with Skype on new mobile handset - report Telecom Paper (subscription) 3 plus Skype equals free phone calls for all Tech all 11 news articles

Source: news.google.com

uclick Launches Michael Jantze's 'The Norm' on Mobile Phones - PR Web (press release)

uclick Launches Michael Jantze's 'The Norm' on Mobile Phones PR Web (press release), WA - 11 hours ago uclick and cartoonist Michael Jantze have announced the launch of the hit comic "The Norm" on mobile phones through uclick's GoComics Mobile Comic Book …

Source: news.google.com

Samsung D900i Mobile Phone Review - Hot Or Not - PR-GB.com (press release)

Samsung D900i Mobile Phone Review - Hot Or Not PR-GB.com (press release), Bulgaria - 11 hours ago Samsung makes great mobile phones, and the Samsung D900i is no exception. Overall, this quad band GPRS/EDGE phone has a great appearance and some very nice …

Source: news.google.com

Broadcom planning 12 megapixel, 720p playback - for mobile phones - Mobile Digest

TMC Net

Broadcom planning 12 megapixel, 720p playback - for mobile phones Mobile Digest, UK - 8 hours ago Broadcom is already supplying test quantities of this amazing new 'super chip' to mobile makers, so expect pioneering phone innovators like LG or Samsung to … Broadcom Cell Chip Goes HD PC World Broadcom Develops 12MP, 720p, HDMI Phone Chip TrustedReviews New chip puts HD in mobile phones 1:39PM, Tuesday 2nd October 2007 PC Pro CNNMoney.com - TMC Net all 23 news articles

Source: news.google.com

Cell phones find yet another role: Map - Chicago Tribune

Scientific American

Cell phones find yet another role: Map Chicago Tribune, United States - Oct 2, 2007 On Monday, Nokia, the world's largest maker of mobile phones, made a huge play for this emerging technology by agreeing to buy Chicago-based digital … Nokia to buy GPS map company Navteq for $8.1 billion Baltimore Sun Nokia's software solution CNNMoney.com Nokia to make largest-ever corporate deal Siberian News Online CNET News.com - New York Times all 685 news articles

Source: news.google.com

Television on your mobile phones - The Statesman

Television on your mobile phones The Statesman, India - 22 hours ago ?Industry and technology standards to deliver TV content to mobile phones are in place. With this satellite, we want to address the mass market," TAC?s Mr …

Source: news.google.com

Verizon Adds iPhone Lookalike In Challenge To Apple - InformationWeek

Scientific American

Verizon Adds iPhone Lookalike In Challenge To Apple InformationWeek, NY - 2 hours ago By Elena Malykhina Verizon Wireless on Wednesday unveiled four new mobile phones for the 2007 holiday season, and it hopes that one of them is cool enough … Verizon Wireless prepare to take on Apple iPhone with LG Voyager … TechWhack Verizon Wireless Enlists LG, Samsung to Battle IPhone (Update1) Bloomberg Hands-on with the LG Voyager touch screen TV phone infoSync World infoSync World - CNNMoney.com all 249 news articles

Source: news.google.com

Google and Yahoo Tracking - Help bring in Huge Conversions - iPod Movie Downloads!
Ipod-Flicks - Earn 75% & Big Conversions.

Though Google announced that billing mobile game sales for Android isn't possible before early 2009, a company called Mogees has just announed an SDK to at least offer some sort of billing. With this...

Writing out a check earlier this week, I had the strange feeling of just playing like I was an adult. Sort of like when I was a kid, when playing Monopoly or Life or some other game that gave you funny money. Look at me! I'm all growed up.

Perhaps it was the ceremony that goes into writing a check. Writing out the words for the dollars, doing the cents as figures over 100. Writing out the figure amount. The dating and, of course, the signature.

Who taught me all this? I suppose in high school some of it might have been explained. But really, I think it comes from having watched parents or others who had checkbooks before I did - seeing what they did and mimicking the same.

Hence the playing at adult. There was no adult school I went to, to teach me to buy groceries, buy a car, buy a home, to have a family. No manual to adult life. Suddenly, I was away from home at college, on my own, with the trappings of adulthood. The responsibilities of being an adult. But no real experience of being an adult, nor a guide to what that is supposed to be. Was I doing it right? Would I be discovered as not really adult, by all the other real adults around me?

Sometimes I'm confident in my adulthood. I can feel I am all grown up, know where things are going, how they should be. But then I can look back and think wow, how young I was and how little I really knew.

I've seen people who seem unquestionably adult like. They exude a sense of authority, or certainty or, I don't know - adultness. Grown up, no question - and I can feel like I still don't quite belong.

I confess. I still pretend my car is a spaceship, with invisible thrusters I can control as I fly through space. Maybe I'll never be fully adult, whatever that is.

Or so you thought. Petrol in Malaysia is 15c cheaper, yet fuel surcharges are still there to help MAS recover their costs. The thing is fuel surcharge (some denoted as YT) is costing more than the AIR TICKET ITSELF. Despite lowering JET 1-A going down, we are paying so dearly for these costs. Especially those who need to study, or to travel for work or business and such.

I’m updating some of the technical backend at CHAT.NU Community Blogs, where it’s like another WORDPRESS.COM thingy, less the nagware and stuff and I’ve been toying with the plugins, games and add-ons for everyone. Likewise, I came to light the new feature on Adsense, which is a referral link report,and it shows the conversions and fraud levels which is useful to see what your visitors (customers) are seeing.

Another is the implementation of Custom Search. It’s something to toy about. And those who know of it, I will be on road show again, thsi time at Melaka MITC for the SDSI program. So ..try catch me!

As if we needed any more evidence that home-based agents and virtual call centers were the way to go, here's yet another: plan a physical, brick and mortar call center, and the neighbors start complaining that it will cause too much of an increase in traffic and parking congestion, not to mention scare the birds away.

TES

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Not much to see yet, but we do have a few details...

A report from Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu has brought us a bucketload of new details about Square Enix and the games currently in development by the company. Don't look now, but it seems that Tetsuya Nomura's Final Fantasy Versus XIII is taking a back seat to Final Fantasy XIII which is being overseen by colleague Yoshinori Kitase.

In other Square Enix news, updates about the handheld incarnations of Kingdom Hearts were also put forward. Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep for the PSP and Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 for the Nintendo DS seem to be moving along pretty well. They aren't close to gold, but they're on their way there.

In any case, here's the bulk of what's been reported by Famitsu:

• DKΣ3713 is a private show so for the general public that wants to see and play the games; TGS in October will feature more new information.
  
• The event will be at the same format as previous S-E events, with closed theatre as well as playable booths outside.
  
• Birth by Sleep will be playable for the first time at the event.
  
• Despite the news that Square Enix was going to scale back from Mobile development, it appears that Kingdom Hearts: Coded, 3rd Birthday and Agito XIII will still be going ahead.
  
• Agito XIII seems to be facing serious development issues at the moment. There is a huge worldview and historical timeline.
  
• The director of Agito XIII is doing the outline of the entire story synopsis himself now, development is still in early stages.
  
• Versus XIII is on hold until FFXIII is done, because the entire Versus team is helping to finish Final Fantasy XIII at the moment. It is number one priority.
  
• While the planners and programmers are all working on Final Fantasy XIII, the Versus project is getting the designers to work on a lot of image illustrations and conceptual visuals. The story for Versus is also pretty much complete.
  
• Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days is being tuned and balanced, but it is not quite as polished as Dissidia yet. They'll be taking feedback from the playable demo.
  
• Birth by Sleep is not anywhere close to a final build, but Nomura wants to let people get a chance to try it out first.
  
• Advent Children Complete might finally be close to getting a release date.
  
  

Take the ringtone personality test, hear your 5 best free ringtones and download them for free.

I just got this in the mail and I thought it was a quite funny idea. Shampoo bottled up in what looks like oil bottles. Nice.

Gear Head Camaro shampoo [gearheadshampoo.com]

WiMAX operator sticks by its promise of open and unlimited access to mobile broadband

Worldwide Infrastructure Security Report
Arbor Networks, Inc., in cooperation with the Internet network security operations community, has completed the second edition of an ongoing series of annual operational security surveys. The survey is designed to provide data useful to network operators so that they can make informed decisions about their use of network security technology to protect their mission-critical infrastructure. Registration is required to receive the 2006 report. Please complete the form below.

A couple months ago, we wrote about what may be one of the most bizarre and questionable trademark lawsuits we've seen. Huge corporate law firm Jones Day was suing a small website called BlockShopper for posting public info about various professionals (including some who worked at Jones Day) buying homes in certain neighborhoods. Jones Day claimed that BlockShopper violated trademark law by mentioning that Jones Day employees worked at Jones Day and linking to Jones Day's website. The firm claimed that naming the company and linking it was a violation of trademark since people would interpreted it as being sponsored by Jones Day. It's hard to see how anyone, let alone a moron in a hurry would come to that conclusion, but that's what Jones Day claimed. Plenty of legal advocacy groups quickly jumped up in protest. If Jones Day won, it would establish a horrible precedent, that a firm could claim trademark infringement just for linking to the company's website.

The case was such an incredible stretch of trademark law, and so obviously a situation of a big law firm bullying a small website that it seemed obvious that the judge should dismiss the case. However, there were some worrying signs at the beginning. Paul Levy from Public Citizen had reported that the judge apparently told the guy from BlockShopper that he should just settle, noting how much it would cost to defend himself -- suggesting that the judge was already siding with Jones Day, despite the highly questionable nature of the claims. So, while disturbing, perhaps it's not a surprise that the judge has refused to dismiss the case. This increases the likelihood that BlockShopper will simply settle, as the time and expense of going through a lawsuit is, indeed, quite large, as the judge allegedly noted originally. It's difficult to fathom how one could look at the facts of the case and see any merit in the trademark infringement claims. This is a very unfortunate ruling.

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This is probably one of the more affordable Supernova phones from Nokia. The 7100 Supernova retails at about 70 Euros and is targeted towards developing countries. It isn’t really about the fashion - and come to think of it, the positioning of the phone puts design in second place as the 7100 Supernova comes with a few tools that support … well a mileu of develpment tools like agriculture information for pricing of produce; so Mr. Farmer can have a second opinion aside from the middle man’s prices.

The Nokia 7100 Supernova is a stylish addition to the popular Supernova collection. Designed for style and entertainment, the colorful device is highlighted by its large, high resolution color screen, FM radio and a 1.3 megapixel camera and support for Share on Ovi, Nokia’s online photo sharing service. The Nokia 7100 Supernova will also include support for Mail on Ovi, as well as a browser for surfing information on the Internet. The Nokia 7100 Supernova is expected to begin shipping in the fourth quarter of 2008 with an estimated retail price of 75 EUR. [PRESS RELEASE]

The Supernova 7100 comes with Bluetooth, a 1.3MP camera, FM radio and Nokia Life Tools. And yes even if we aren’t third world, this phone is yummy.

Tags: 7100, Nokia, Supernova

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Outsourcing is now standard among cellphone carriers, whether it's for call centers or retail sales. But as Sprint (NYSE: S) Nextel looks for ways to right its listing ship, it is mulling a fairly dramatic outsourcing effort that could involve thousands of its IT and network-operations employees, the Kansas City Star reports. A spokesman for the carrier declined to give specifics on the outsourcing idea other than to say it was an option. "What we spend on our network per customer is more than what our networks are spending," said the spokesman, John Taylor.

Macquarie Research analyst Phil Cusick recently suggested the carrier might be exploring outsourcing IT-related jobs to IBM and network operations jobs to Alcatel Lucent or Ericsson (NSDQ: ERIC). He thinks the carrier could outsource as many as 5,000 to 10,000 employees through the move. "Network outsourcings typically involve transferring the affected network-operations employees (though not the network itself) to the vendor, which will then 'right-size' the cost structure," Cusick wrote recently in an investor report. "Given (Sprint's) redundant iDEN and CDMA workforces, we would expect significant layoffs (including in Kansas City) that (Sprint) may not have the political stomach to do itself."

It's not an entirely new idea in the industry. Carriers have various functions that operate internally and externally, oftentimes moving in both directions depending on performance and other metrics. Sprint Nextel is working on improving the customer experience, re-building its brand and increasing profitability, Taylor said. "The other focus that we have is that we really want to simplify our business and that's been true from the very beginning (when Sprint acquired Nextel in 2005)? We've begun the process of turning things around, but there's a lag of perception in the marketplace and it's understandable."

Social Media Deals Report: This 199-page report, filled with charts and data, examines the categories, number and size of VC and M&A deal in social media from 2007 through 2008. Visit the ContentNext Reports page