Filed under: Cellphones

After holding out for years, MTA has finally caved to the public’s demand for cellphones in New York subways. New York City Transit has announced a deal with Transit Wireless, who’s forking out $46.8 million over 10 years for the privilege of installing service in the 277 underground stations currently lacking coverage. Cell phone providers will have to pay Transit Wireless for their customers to be able to roam onto the subway network, but it’s hard to feel sorry for them: a consortium of major providers, including Verizon and Sprint offered up a mere $40 (not a typo) to install similar coverage. The good news for subway passengers loathe to have the privacy of their commute interrupted by rude cellphone talkers is that coverage won’t be extended to train tunnels, only the stations, meaning passengers will have to take care of business before they get on the train. Proponents cite the need for passengers to be able to text message and call out of stations in the case of emergencies, but we’re just glad to finally step into a station without going through internet withdrawls. The first six stations should have coverage in two years, and once proven the system will expand to the rest of the stations in the following four years.

[Via textually.org]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Share This

Filed under: Desktops, Gaming, Laptops

We could get used to this new effort on Sony’s part at “openness,” and even if this one’s just a new way to access Sony’s closed ecosystem of PlayStation Store content, it’s a start at least. You can now use your humdrum, maybe-not-even-Sony-built PC to purchase and download PlayStation Store content — including PSOne games — and transfer it to your PSP, instead of relying on a ’spensive PS3 to do the trick. Sony has been promising this function for a few months now, but they’ve finally delivered, and apparently you can get in on the action today, at least in Japan. Also announced at TGS07 is future PSP Remote Play functionality (pictured) that allows you to turn on and off your PS3, and the ability to use your PS3 as a hub while PSPs act as a second screen, extra controllers and offer other networked functionality. No word on when these fanboy dreams will see light as a true-life firmware update. Oh, and before you get to thinking that the PSP is getting all the love here, Sony also announced a new function for Home called “dress,” with “everybody’s fashion entertainment” for a tag line. Whatever that means, Sony’s going to be delaying the launch of Home into 2008, so we can’t say we’re exactly stoked about the new feature.

Read - PSP Remote Play

Continue reading PlayStation Store heads to your PC — Home delayed until 2008

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Share This

Filed under: Audio/Video, Cameras

Statistics obtained by the British Liberal Democrats Party through the Freedom of Information Act (yes, they have one, too) show that even with over 10,000 cameras in various London boroughs, 80 percent of all crimes still go unsolved. In fact, when broken down by borough, there is no correlation between the number of cameras and the percent of crimes solved.

• There are now 10,524 CCTV cameras in 32 London boroughs funded with Home Office grants totaling about £200million.
• Hackney has the most cameras — 1,484 — and has a better-than-average “clear up rate” of 22.2 per cent.
• Wandsworth has 993 cameras, Tower Hamlets, 824, Greenwich, 747 and Lewisham 730, but police in all four boroughs fail to reach the average 21 percent clear-up rate.
• By contrast, boroughs such as Kensington and Chelsea, Sutton and Waltham Forest have fewer than 100 cameras each, yet they still have clear-up rates of around 20 per cent.
• Police in Sutton have one of the highest clear-ups with 25 per cent.
• Brent police have the highest clear-up rate, with 25.9 per cent of crimes solved in 2006-07, even though the borough has only 164 cameras.

After 10 years and £200 million of tax payer money, groups like the criminal justice charity Narco are questioning whether the money would have been better spent on more street lights, which can cut crime by up to 20 percent.

Even the scariest of stories about government and police surveillance usually end with the good guys catching the bad guys, which makes the “Big Brother” theories a little less ominous. We don’t mean to burst your bubble or anything, but as this story shows, that doesn’t always happen.

From thisislondon

Related links:

• Sneak Peek At Next Generation Surveillance
• FBI Caught Digging too Deep
• Surveillance Devices Eventually to Record Entire Lives

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Share This

Filed under: Newspapers, Magazines, Google (GOOG), Apple Inc (AAPL), Goldman Sachs Group (GS)

MAJOR PAPERS:

• Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co and Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS) may not go through with their expected buyout of Harmon International Industries (NYSE: HAR), according to the Wall Street Journal, as a result of the credit crisis and lower results at Harmon.
• The Financial Times reported that Chinese PC maker Lenovo Group (OTC: LNVGY) is open to acquiring companies, but buying companies is not a top priority, according to Lenovo CEO Bill Amelio.

OTHER PAPERS:

• The Guardian reported that Google Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG) is considering a move into the U.K. wireless market after regulator Ofcom proposed taking back over a third of the mobile phone spectrum that Vodafone Group (NYSE: VOD) and O2 have been using for 22 years to auction it for new entrants.
• From BusinessWeek’s “Inside Wall Street” column:
• How much higher can Apple Inc (NADSAQ: AAPL) go? Of the 27 analysts who track Apple, 23 still recommend buying it, 4 rate it a hold, while none advise selling it.
• A week after Boone Pickens disclosed a 9.9% stake in InterOil Corporation (NYSE: IOC), the stock gushed from $28 on Aug. 8 to $40.75 on Aug. 13, the day the oil-and-gas explorer disclosed it found evidence of oil in its Elk-2 well in Papua New Guinea.
• Bioenvision Inc (NASDAQ: BIVN), the small biotech that Genzyme Corporation (NASDAQ: GENZ) agreed to acquire in May at $5.60 a share, may not close on the deal unless Genzyme raises its offer.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Share This

Filed under: Before the bell, Analyst upgrades and downgrades, Google (GOOG), Apple Inc (AAPL), General Electric (GE), Circuit City Stores (CC), Family Dollar Stores (FDO), Mattel, Inc (MAT), Yamana Gold (AUY), Wells Fargo (WFC)

Before the bell: Stocks futures higher after strong earnings yesterday

ZDNet reports that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) may be blacklisting hacked iPhones, refusing to service phones hacked that run T-Mobile. The L.A. Times also reports that beginning this week, season premiere episodes of seven Fox Broadcasting programs will be made available for free through Apple’s iTunes store.

Notable calls this morning:

• Merrill Lynch downgraded Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) to Neutral from Buy, citing the stock’s recent outperformance and rising credit losses.
• Mattel (NYSE: MAT), which also apologized to China for toy recalls, was upgraded Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Linda Bolton Weiser to Buy from Neutral, with a target of $30. The analyst said that recall-related bad news is now in the past and already priced in. There are a number of catalysts for share price growth like the introduction of new toys related to three movies and others. She expects operating margin expansion and double-digit earnings growth in 2008.
• Family Dollar Stores Inc. (NYSE: FDO) was downgraded by JPMorgan anlayst Charles Grom to Underweight from Neutral due to tough competition and a sluggish economy.
• Yamana Gold Inc. (NYSE: AUY) was downgraded at CIBC World Market from Sector Outperform to Sector Perform and the price target lowered from $16 to $14.
• The least surprising of downgrades come from Bear Stearns of Circuit City (NYSE: CC), to Peer Perform from Outperform.
• More calls here.

General Electric (NYSE: GE) has offered €4 billion ($5.6 billion) to buy the property assets which Spanish bank Santander is selling to fund its bid for parts of Dutch bank ABN AMRO.

According to executives at Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), it’s true that U.S. mortgage lenders are cutting advertising budgets due to a global credit squeeze, but they are not likely to reduce internet search marketing anytime soon.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Share This

Filed under: Law, Google (GOOG), eBay (EBAY)

In what I see increasing as a practice, music artist Prince has started a catfight with Google, Inc.’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) YouTube service and eBay, Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) over copyright violations dealing with unauthorized video content on YouTube and Prince-labeled clothing and shoes on eBay.

The constant battle copyright holders continue to have with the opening of content and commerce on the global web won’t be over soon — far from it. In fact, the web can be both the biggest threat and the most lucrative distribution tool for music and video artists. Defining the line between those, however, is so blurry no corrective lenses will ever be able to see it clearly.

Prince’s issue here is the constant re-posting of his videos and other content on YouTube, even after his internet policing specialist successfully worked with YouTube officials taking down content that infringed on his copyright. In true YouTube fashion, more content is immediately uploaded and the circle starts all over again.

Then come the mousepads and shoes showing up on eBay with Prince’s likeness. Same deal as with YouTube — he just wants those items to be taken down for good. In an age where users are the ones responsible for uploading and listing infringing material — not the hosting companies like eBay and YouTube — how far does the responsibility go for both companies? That question still has no answer, and the web will continue upending the entertainment industry little by little.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Share This

Filed under: Internet, Google (GOOG), Next big thing, Small business

Web watcher comScore Inc. has reported that last month, the new site GodTube.com saw traffic climb 973% — growth unprecedented in the web’s history. GodTube welcomed 1.7 million unique visitors between its official August 8 launch and month’s end, debuting in comScore’s list of top 1,000 internet properties.

Owned and operated by Big Jump Media, Inc., GodTube is exactly what you might guess — a Christian alternative to Google (NASDAQ: GOOG)’s YouTube. Similar to its secular counterpart, GodTube visitors can upload, view and comment on sermons, music videos and performances, testimonials, skits and sketches, rants, raves and what have you. In six weeks, it has accumulated more than 20,000 user-submitted clips and streamed more than 800,000 hours of video.

It’s fascinating that here we are nearly two decades into the internet, and only now does a dominant faith-oriented web destination start to take shape. Sure, denominations and sects have their own predominant web resources — some even run dynamic, regularly updated web portals. But your web search for religion will mostly yield a lot of domain squatting (www.religion.com, www.god.org) and last century’s web design (www.jesuschrist.com, www.yhwh.com).
But the opportunity has surely always been there. Since the heyday of Usenet, determined faithful have been debating and witnessing, huddling together on message boards or tugging back and forth on Wikipedia entries.

Just to give you an idea of how often web-going Americans reach to religion, consider these figures from Google. Shown here are the relative volumes of searches for “God,” “Jesus,” “church” and “Britney Spears,” the latter our control for this experiment, chosen since she’s the most veteran resident of Lycos’ weekly list of 50 most searched people, places and things:

But for occasional spikes, Miss Britney typically places lower than the first three terms, giving some perspective on how in demand she really is (or isn’t). Good on GodTube’s backers — who include Norm Miller, chairman of privately-held Interstate Batteries — for answering that demand for faith with YouTube’s viral recipe.

How long can GodTube maintain this growth? That’s a question for its users. As is the case with YouTube and other startup smashes like eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) and News Corp (NYSE: NWS)’s MySpace, GodTube is just a meeting place, tasking its unpaid community with the bother of generating content, not to mention policing its appropriateness for the site, which is likely to be an enduring issue of contention. Even before admonishing copyright infringement (of which there is plenty — in my short browse of GodTube, I found clips from CNN, the BBC, and Ellen), the site’s user agreement requires that you post nothing that “is contrary to the evangelization of Jesus Christ and His teachings, or constitutes blasphemy, or is otherwise offensive to our online Christian community.”

Not something I’d want to adjudicate — hope they stock up on Aleve.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Share This

Filed under: Google (GOOG), China, Newsletters, Bargain stocks, Stocks to Buy

China stock expert Jim Trippon recently issued new buy recommendation on SINA Corp. (NASDAQ: SINA), which operates four Chinese-language web portals.

In his China Stock Digest, the advisor says, “We believe that SINA has a degree of diversity, brand strength and earnings growth potential that puts it ahead of the competition.”

Trippon explains, “We believe SINA is uniquely positioned to rise in profitability with increasing web penetration in the Mainland and beyond. SINA Corporation is in the ambitious business of bringing Chinese language web access to Greater China and the rest of the world.”

SINA, he notes, operates four Chinese-language web portals, serving the PRC, Hong Kong, Taiwan, as well as Chinese-speaking people in North America. The company has more than 230 million registered users worldwide and 600 million daily page views.

According to the advisor, “The company’s portals in rich Chinese-speaking and English-speaking markets have added to SINA’s growing cash flow with new services like eChineseLearning, an online language school specializing in one-on-one, live audio and video instruction.”

Trippon observes, “Although it’s one of China’s top Internet portals, SINA lagged behind Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU) in search traffic in early 2007. But a recently announced partnership with Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) is expected to power up ad buying at SINA, thanks to the perceived power and prestige of the Google name in China.”

He adds, “SINA boasts that it has over 42 million active users for a variety of fee-based services. SINA claims to be the most recognized Internet brand name, both in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and among Chinese communities globally.”

Because of its high profile, penetration and prestige, notes Trippon, SINA has been called an essential buy for advertisers conducting branding campaigns in the increasingly brand-conscious Chinese consumer market.”

The company, he notes, says it expects to benefit from the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games as Olympic partners and sponsors start to place more of their budget on the Internet and its Olympic Coverage Alliance begins to pay off.

Trippon states, “We believe SINA is an aggressive player with huge market potential that extends well beyond mainland Chinese borders. SINA has a unique opportunity to become a global brand name and a must-see Web portal for the Chinese community on every continent.”

The advisor concludes, “The company is in a solid cash position with a reported debt of $100 million backed by a cash position estimated at $160 million and annual revenues exceeding $200 million. We believe that SINA has a degree of diversity, brand strength and earnings growth potential that puts it ahead of the competition.”

Each day, Steven Halpern’s TheStockAdvisors.com features the latest stock picks and investment ideas from the nation’s leading financial newsletter advisors.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Share This

The SitePoint Design Contests site has been shortlisted in the McFarlane Prize, which rewards excellence in web design by Australian web professionals.

I know that our development team have put in an enormous number of hours, factored in tons of user feedback to improve the usability, and really pushed the limits of how accessible a site displaying content from thousands of different users can be. See the SitePoint development blog and Lachlans’s previous post for a glimpse at what has gone into this development effort.

The winner of the McFarlane Prize will be announced at the Web Directions South conference in Sydney later this week.

Congratulations to all of the shortlisted sites!

This article provided by sitepoint.com.

Share This

Filed under: e-Distribution Games

Hidden away in Sony’s TGS catalog was a shocking revelation: Gran Turismo 5 Prologue’s Japanese release date and price. Scheduled for December 13th, the game sample (demo, as we used to call) will retail for a whopping ¥4,980 ($43.10) on Blu-ray and ¥4,500 ($38.95) when downloaded through the PlayStation Store. Although the game will feature stunning graphics and many features of the final game, this seems as much too high for a game that has a limited track and vehicle selection. We hope that this kind of sticker shock doesn’t come across the Pacific into other territories.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Share This