Numerous reports claim that the Learning Thermostat from Nest will be available at Apple retail stores shortly. Nest is a company formed around developing and marketing the thermostat by Apple's former senior vice president and original iPod architect Tony Fadell. The thermostat is listed in Apple inventory databases, but MacNN has confirmed no stock is available to purchase at this time.
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In a blog post this week, Cisco revealed that the company will no longer be producing the Cius. The enterprise-focused tablet was released last year but never caught on with business consumers, who are increasingly opting for Apple's iPad, and other competitors to a lesser extent, as a mobile computing solution.
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18 hours ago | Posted in: industry
A Microsoft-sponsored IDC report released yesterday claims that annual support costs for Windows XP systems are five times higher than a Windows 7 system, as part of the software maker's latest effort to push users to move to its most recent Windows version. Last month, Microsoft (with uncharacteristic frankness) issued a statement that told organizations that if they have not started "the migration to a modern PC, you are late." Windows XP will finally be completely orphaned by Microsoft with no further support or patches in April 2014, nearly 13 years after it launched.
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Auction house Sotheby's will be selling two bits of history soon -- one strongly related to Apple, the other less so -- both tied to the late Steve Jobs. On June 15, the company will be auctioning a rare working Apple I motherboard, one of only six known to exist in this state, and expected to fetch more than $180,000. Also being auctioned in a separate lot is a rare handwritten memo and typed report from Jobs from his time at Atari.
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Chinese telecommunications equipment manufacturer ZTE is reportedly under investigation by the US Department of Commerce over alleged sales of embargoed US computer equipment to Iran. Commerce Department officials close to the investigation tell Reuters that the department is aggressively conducting its investigation, and fines for ZTE could range into the tens of millions of dollars.
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21 hours ago | Posted in: iPad apps
Yahoo announced today that the company will be discontinuing its personalized digital newspaper app, Livestand, after just six months of availability in the App Store. As detailed in a posting on the Yahoo Corporate Blog, the move is part of a greater push by the web company to refocus its efforts into a mobile-products-first model, with a greater focus on software offerings for tablets, smartphones, and other connected devices.
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The official Sony blog published an update today, detailing the progress on Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) upgrades on Xperia smartphones. As noted yesterday, the Xperia Play has been removed from the upgrade list. All other upgrades are proceeding as previously announced.
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21 hours ago | Posted in: industry
Representative Frank Pallone Jr (D-NJ), and John Barrow (D-GA) are pushing the Department of Justice to reopen the completed investigation of Google's Street View and Wi-Fi data harvesting while mapping America's streets. Pallone stated "In light of the FCC report on Google Wi-Spy -- which revealed Google intentionally collected personal information from Americans—I urge the Department of Justice to re-evaluate the Google Wi-Spy incident." The FCC and DoJ report on the incident found no laws were broken by Google during the mapping, despite Pallone's interpretation of the investigation that the data gathering was a “deliberate, software-design decision."
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Chinese electronics manufacturer Oppo appears to be readying to release the Finder, a smartphone that is claimed to snag the title of World's Slimmest at just over a quarter of an inch in depth. A video showing off the slim handset was released yesterday, and specs for the device have been appearing on numerous tech blogs.
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23 hours ago | Posted in:
Leaked images have emerged purporting to show both photos and specs for two forthcoming Dell tablets running Windows 8. The images appeared yesterday on tech site Neowin, and apparently show the Dell Latitude 10 and XPS 12. Dell has already affirmed that the company will be one of the very first to release Windows 8 tablets, but these images appear to be the most concrete evidence to emerge to date with regard to features and capabilities for those offerings.
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Researchers at the MIT Media Lab have created a Minority Report-style glove and iPad input system for three-dimensional virtual object manipulation called T(ether). The system lets the team use motion tracking on gloves to create and alter virtual items with the iPads used as a point-of-view window to see what the users are manipulating. A demonstration video shows the system having multiple users simultaneously affecting the compter-generated world, both with and without the glove.
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The first video taken with Google's Project Glass wearable computing device has shown up on the Internet. The video is part of a collection of media, all produced with Project Glass, that was posted to a Google+ Photography Conference album. The 15-second clip, in a manner somewhat reminiscent of a first-person video game, shows Project Glass' view as the wearer jumps and somersaults on a trampoline.
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Fri May 25, 2012 | Posted in: gadgets
ViewSonic, best known for its wallet-friendly TVs and computer monitors, is now teasing a new range of Android-powered tablets. The Touch and Connect range is said to be in prototype form, and is headlined by the 22-inch model, thus far known only as a smart business tablet monitor. It appears to be running on Android 4.0, though it may also eventually get a model with Windows 8 onboard and multi-touch capability.
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Facebook may be planning to buy Opera Software, maker of the Opera web browser, according to a rumor. Sources of Pocket Lint say that the social network is looking towards making its own browser, which would put it alongside Apple, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, and Yahoo, and the purchase of Opera Software and its technology would save Facebook from having to build one from the ground up.
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Toshiba won't bring any new netbooks to the US market, a company executive told Liliputing. This means that the NB510 netbook powered by Intel's Atom N2600 processor introduced at CES won't be sold in the US. Instead, Toshiba America will sell ultrabook computers, which are lighter and thinner, but also more expensive.
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Verizon's $3.6 billion buy of AWS spectrum may be approved by the FCC after all, analysts believe, though it will require a number of conditions. For one, it may have to give up some of its spectrum, and has already offered to give some up in the past. What may stand in the way is the conditions of the sale, with all involved trying to get the most of it, CNET reported.
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