Technology Tools
Videocon May Sell Control of Mobile-Phone Unit, Executive Says
Billionaire Venugopal Dhoot’s Videocon group may sell a controlling stake in its wireless unit to an overseas partner to help fund expansion of the business.
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HP to Buy 3Par for $2.35 Billion as Dell Walks Away
Hewlett-Packard Co. agreed to buy 3Par Inc. for $2.35 billion, ending an 18-day bidding war with Dell Inc. for the maker of storage systems and stepping up its rivalry with EMC Corp.
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HP Might Have Won 3Par at a Lower Price by Waiting
Hewlett-Packard Co. may have paid more than it needed for 3Par Inc. because it outbid a Dell Inc. offer that 3Par already rejected, said two people close to the situation.
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Murdoch Reporters' Phone Hacking Was Endemic, Victimized Hundreds
A phone-hacking scheme involving British royals and reporters working for one of Rupert Murdoch's tabloid newspapers went far beyond what was previously disclosed and prosecuted. The British Prime Minister's current media adviser is accused of having encouraged the hacking.
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Win Your Fantasy Football League
If it's September, it's football season — which also means it's time for millions of fantasy football drafts around the world to commence. Maximize your in-season points while dealing with the setbacks that are bound to occur by following our guide.
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Video Artist Transforms YouTube's TOS Into a Paranoid Nightmare
The video site's ever-evolving terms of service drive an observer mad in this arty clip by Carlo Zanni. No charge for the 1984 references.
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Apple TV's Meager Offerings Are Due to Business, Not Tech
This week’s big Apple announcement featured one big disappointment: Apple TV’s relative lack of, well, TV. Out of all of the hundreds of channels available on cable and satellite, only ABC and Fox agreed to offer their programs for rent on Apple TV. The fact that Steve Jobs is the largest single shareholder in, and on the board of, Disney — owner of ABC — perfectly illustrates this digital divide.
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Clustered Networks Spread Behavior Change Faster
Unlike infectious disease and information, behavior change spreads faster through online networks that have many close connections instead of many distant ties. Redundancy is key, as people are more likely to engage in a behavior if they see many others doing it.
"There has been a lot of theory about the difference between information and behavior spreading," said economic sociologist Damon Centola of MIT and author of the study published Sept. 3 in Science. "We've assumed that they are the same, but you can imagine that behavior is not really like that, that you need to be convinced."
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Verizon Boosts Dividend by Smallest Amount Since 2006
Verizon Communications Inc., the second-largest U.S. phone company, increased its quarterly dividend by the smallest amount in four years today amid slowing sales growth.
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Exotic New Mars Images From Orbiting Telephoto Studio
A new batch of sharp Martian close-ups from NASA's HiRISE camera were released, and we've gathered some of the best in the gallery.
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Exoplanet Shows Gas Giants Start as Dusty Behemoths
The atmosphere of a young exoplanet didn't fit any of our existing models for what gas giants should look like. But when astronomers added huge dust clouds, it was a perfect fit, perhaps revealing a larger truth about gas giants.
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Haverty on Apple Retail Advantage
Lawrence Haverty, portfolio manager at Gamco Investors Inc., talks with Bloomberg's Betty Liu about Apple Inc.'s new television set-top box.
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Earth's Magnetic Field Flipped Superfast
Magnetic minerals in 15-million-year-old rocks appear to preserve a moment when the magnetic north pole was rapidly on its way to becoming the south pole, and vice versa.
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Mobile Devices Need Custom Maps
Development Seed is engineering tools to create custom maps that work in a wider variety of situations such as natural disasters and in the developing world.
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Mass Extinctions Change the Rules of Evolution
A reinterpretation of the fossil record suggests a new answer to one of evolution's existential questions: whether global mass extinctions are just short-term diversions in life's preordained course, or send life careening down wholly new paths.
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First Look: Official Twitter App for iPad Feels Smooth as Butter
The official Twitter app for iPad is finally here, and star developer Loren Brichter has polished yet another gem. Twitter for iPad sports a really elegant interface that's significantly faster and more intuitive than competing Twitter clients we've tested (such as Twitterific and Tweetdeck).
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Fujitsu ScanSnap Counts Quality Over Quantity
Fujitsu's scanner is your new (albeit bulky) buddy if you want high-quality images. The sturdy document feeder gets pages in straight, so you get them out right.
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Chrome 6 Arrives, Just in Time for Cake
Google is celebrating the second birthday of its Chrome web browser with the release of Chrome 6. Among the new features are an updated user interface, auto-fill for web forms, extension syncing, increased speed and numerous bug fixes.
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How Apple Just Disrupted the Cable Guys
People in Silicon Valley have focused on the set-top box as the lever to attack the cable industry. Cable boxes blow, but that's a losing battle. So why is Apple TV different? Because Steve Jobs has not just created a new set top box. He's actually created a whole new media ecosystem built around the mobile phone.
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