Sony Brings the Bling with Swarovski Photoframe

Category: International

Apple iPhone Coming to South Korea This Week

Apple-iphone-sg3Apple Inc’s iPhone is coming to South Korea this week, a local carrier announced Sunday, bringing the iconic communications device to one of the world’s most sophisticated mobile phone markets.

KT Corp. began accepting orders for the iPhone both online and in stores Sunday and service will start Nov. 28 as part of an official launch, said Alice Park, a spokeswoman for the country’s second-largest mobile carrier.

The announcement ends a long wait in South Korea, which has lagged behind other countries in Asia in introducing the sleek smartphone that has grabbed headlines around the world and solidified Apple’s status as a purveyor of cutting-edge consumer electronics.  Read more...

Chinese Censor Obama’s Speech for a Free Web

obama-china-speechPresident Barack Obama prodded China about Internet censorship and free speech, but the message was not widely heard in China where his words were blocked online and shown on only one regional television channel.

China has more than 250 million Internet users and employs some of the world’s tightest controls over what they see. The country is often criticized for its so-called “Great Firewall of China” — technology designed to prevent unwanted traffic from entering or leaving a network.

During his town hall meeting in Shanghai on Monday, Obama responded at length to a question about the firewall — remarks that were later played down in the Chinese media and scrubbed from some Chinese Web sites.  Read more...

Finnish Technology Workers May Strike

on-strike-sign1Some 2,000 employees in Finland’s technology sector will begin a strike in two weeks time if no agreement is reached in labor talks with company managers, union leaders said Wednesday.

The weeklong strike, due to start Dec. 1, would affect certain units at engineering firm ABB, mobile phone maker Nokia Corp., shipbuilder STX Finland and engineering group Rautaruukki.

Negotiations between the Union of Salaried Employees and the Federation of Finnish Technology Industries have broken down, the union said. The current labor contract ends on Nov. 30.  Read more...

Google Street View Sued by Swiss Privacy Watchdog

google-street-view

Google Inc.’s unstoppable drive to map and photograph the world has run into an immovable object — Switzerland’s strict tradition of personal privacy.

The country’s privacy watchdog announced Friday that he plans to haul the search engine company before a federal court to force it to make changes to its Street View application. Google criticized the decision and said it would defend itself in the case.  Read more...

Dell Mini 3 Android Smartphone Coming to Brazil and China

Computer maker Dell has long been toying with the idea of entering the smartphone business, and today the company officially confirmed it plans to launch its much-rumored Dell Mini 3 smartphone in Brazil and China, with additional markets to follow. However, Dell it being tight-lipped about the phone’s features, specifications, and pricing: Dell is only confirming that the Mini 3 runs Google’s Android mobile operating system, and will launch in Brazil on the mobile operator Claro, and in China on China Mobile.

Dell Mini 3 Smartphone  Read more...

U.S. Army Interested in Robots Requiring Little Human Interaction

army-robotThe United States Army plans to develop innovative new robots that can carry out basic instructions without being tele-operated by human operators.

“There is a push toward increased intelligence and autonomy,” Army robotic systems project office manager Jeff Jaczkowski said in a statement.

In the next 18 months, Army officials outlined goals that indicate the robots will be able to clear dangerous zones, take pictures and replay them back to base, turn corners, and will also be able to travel with convoys as they are out on patrol.  Read more...

Global Smartphone Market Grew During Third Quarter

There’s been a lot of talk and ruminating in the technology industry about what segments might prove to be “recession-proof” during the current economic downturn. Initial speculation centered on the video game market as consumers were seen to be “cocooning” at home rather than opting for more expensive forms of recreation and diversion. But it looks like the smart money may have been on the smartphone market: according to research firm IDC, worldwide shipments of smartphones actually grew 4.2 percent during the third quarter of 2009 to a total of 43.3 million units.

Nokia Maemo Smartphone  Read more...

Europe Objects to Oracle Buying Sun

MySQL Logo

The European Commission has filed a “statement of objections” to Oracle’s planned takeover of Sun Microsystems, saying the takeover would give Oracle too much influence over the market for database product by putting the company in charge of both its own proprietary database systems as well as the open source MySQL database owned by Sun.

The statement is part of a preliminary assessment of the Oracle-Sun deal that the EC launched back in September, and does not represent any sort of final ruling on whether the European Commission will approve the merger. However, it does indicate what the EC is thinking…and that along is enough to get a response out of Oracle, which immediately issued a statement saying the acquisition will not reduce competition in any way, including in the database market.

 Read more...

Samsung Bada: Yet Another Open Mobile Platform

Samsung Bada "ocean" art

South Korean electronics giant Samsung has produced devices for platforms like Windows Mobile, Symbian, and most recently Android. But apparently that’s not enough for the company: Samsung has just announced “bada,” a new open mobile operating system for smartphones. According to Samsung, bada will enable consumers to have a “fun and diverse” mobile experience while offering the sorts of hooks and customization capabilities developers and device manufacturers look for in proprietary phone systems.

For the curious, “bada” means “ocean” in Korean.  Read more...

Robotic Climber Wins $900K in Space Elevator Contest

space-elevatorOne of the proposed methods for getting payloads and people into space at a lower cost is via a method that sounds like science fiction: the space elevator. The prospect of an elevator that takes cargo into space may sound like fiction, but NASA is investing heavily into research to fund the project.

NASA has been holding an annual competition to find robotic technology that can be powered wirelessly to enable a robotic climber to ascend the cable that would be used for the space elevator. The elevator would consist of a cable that would need to be placed at the equator and a cable would be deployed thousands of kilometers into space. The cable would be kept taunt by the centrifugal force of the Earth as it spins.  Read more...

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