IPhone 4 Shortages in China

The iPhone 4 is proving significantly more popular in China than its predecessor. Early demand for the device has already exceeded initial supply, with China Unicom reportedly struggling to fill the more than 200,000 preorders it has received since September 17. The carrier said it sold 60,000 iPhone 4s on Saturday, the day it went on sale, and the line to purchase one at Apple’s new Beijing store reportedly numbered about 1,000.

“We are close to sell-out and there’s no timetable for the arrival of the second batch of products,” said one China Unicom store clerk.

Quite different from iPhone 3, which saw sales of a mere 5,000 during its launch weekend, and a boon for Apple (AAPL), which has targeted China as its next major geographic growth opportunity.

As COO Tim Cook said during an earnings call earlier this year, “If you look at greater China, which we define as mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, the iPhone units were up year-over-year over nine times. We added another 800 points of distribution in China. The revenue, we have never released this number before but I will do this in this particular case, through the first half of the fiscal year that we just completed, for the six month period, our revenue from greater China was almost $1.3 billion and this is up over 200 percent year-over-year. So we are well pleased with how the company is positioned to take advantage of the growth in greater China.”

Facebook Goes Down for Some Users

Some Facebook users were having problems accessing the site Wednesday, as the social-networking giant apparently faced a rare outage that left it intermittently unavailable.

The site wrote on its Twitter account that some people haven’t been able to connect to the site because of “an issue with a third-party network provider.” Facebook said it was working to fix the problem as soon as possible. A Facebook spokeswoman told Digits that the company was in contact with the provider and in the meantime was trying to bypass the affected connections.

Website performance-monitoring company AlertSite said Facebook was “achieving only 76.19 percent availability” Wednesday afternoon and that the problem didn’t appear to be confined to certain regions, as AlertSite saw connection failures in Phoenix, Detroit, Philadelphia, Boston and Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

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Exclusive Interview: The Teens Who Took Over Twitter

A teenage prank on Twitter turned into the hack heard round the world Tuesday — and VentureBeat now has the story behind it. Through an exclusive interview with the two New Zealand kids whose code spread around the world in minutes, we learned exactly how idle mischief from down under turned the fast-growing microblogging site upside-down.

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Gphone vs iPhone, which is better?

As iPhone is the most talked about smart phone on the planet and it has won millions of hearts of users by his multi-touch screen and other powerful/beautiful design. Of course, iPhone has brought so much money for Apple.
On 23rd, Sep 2008 Google released G1 and claimed that they will have a share of the big market of smart phone.
So, which is better about iPhone and G1? That maybe asked by many people who want to buy a new phone. Here I will give some of opinion about G1 and iPhone.
I will compare these two phones in three aspects, hardware, software, and their performance as a media player.

Part 1: Hardware.

1. The price and storage memory
First, the price and storage memory is what I concern most, for iPhone $199 8GB, $299 16GB, for G1 $179 1GB. When you see this you will say G1 is $20 lower than iPhone but G1 is only 1GB and you will pay another $40 for an 8GB SD Card. So I think iPhone win in this round.

2. Appearance
iPhone is 133 grams/4.7 ounces and G1 is 158 grams/5.57 ounces. G1 is taller while iPhone is thinner (G1: 117.7*55.7*17.1, iPhone: 115.5*62.1*12.3).

3. Mobile Network
For mobile Network, they both have Quad Band GSM/EDGE UMTS, but G1 uses T-Mobile-only US 3G and iPhone uses AT&T-only US 3G.

4. Touch screen and input
About touch screen display, iPhone has Multi-touch 3.5 480*320 163 ppi, but G1 does not support mulit-touch. And in input aspect, G1 uses keyboard, Trackball, 6 buttons and touch screen, while iPhone has home button and multi touch screen.

5. Expansion
In expansion ports, G1 uses SD, ExtUSB(USB+audio) but iPhone has headphone, Dock connector (USB+ audio, video, remote). They have the same wireless WiFi 820.11b/g Limited Bluetooth 2.0 EDR.

6. Others
About hardware, the two phones perform almost the same and the only big difference is the iPhone uses multi-touch screen and G1’s camera is better than iPhone. And iPhone has a 1400Ah battery with 300 hours standby time but G1 only has a 1150Ah battery with 5 hours talk time and 130 standby.

Part 2: Software.

iPhone and G1 are both using Webkit as their browser engine. In media playback aspect, iPhone supports music, audiobook, video, streaming, downloads and rental, while for G1, only music playback. G1 has Android Market as its third party software store while iPhone has iPhone app store. G1’s platform is Modified Java development and iPhone uses Cocoa Touch.

Part 3: Their performance as media player.

G1 supports H.264, 3GPP, MPEG4, Codec 3GP video and MP3、AAC、AAC+、WMA、MPEG4、WAV、MIDI、REAL、AUDIO、OGG audio formats.
iPhone supports AAC，Protected AAC，MP3，MP3 VBR，Audible (formats 1, 2, 3), Apple Lossless, AIFF, WAV audio formats and H.264 (up to 1.5Mbps), MPEG-4 (up to 2.5Mbps) 640*480, 30fps, AAC-LC (up to 160 Kbps), 48kHz dimensional sound .m4v, .mp4 and .mov format.

Amazon MP3 Store allows you to download 6 million songs without the DRM protection, 89 cents per song. It is similar with the Apple iPhone, you need to pay for the video and audio sources on the Apple store. But how to get free sources for your G1.

For iPhone and G1 you can buy songs and videos from store, which is really expensive, and you can also make songs and videos for your iPhone and G1 by yourself, you just need to convert your DVDs and videos to mp4 format and then you can put them easily to your iPhone and G1.

Here I recommend you Aiseesoft DVD Converter Suite, it includes Best DVD Ripper, Total Video Converter and iPod to Computer Transfer.
For Mac user, I recommend you Aiseesoft DVD Converter Suite for Mac, it includes DVD Ripper for Mac and Total Video Converter for Mac.

How to clone DVD to DVD folder for Mac

The DVD protection technology makes it dead difficult to clone DVD to DVD folder for Mac, since the protection of DVD must be removed, can you finish the task to clone DVD to DVD folder.

Aiseesoft DVD Copy for Mac is very useful, and simple to use to clone DVD Mac, But this software only suit for the Mac type computer. Go ahead and download this DVD Copy for Mac.

Buy NowFree trial(Intel PPC)

To see how the process of clone DVD to DVD folder for Mac, follows the following steps:

Select clone DVD Mode: Choose “Full Disc ” button or “Main Movie Mode” button according to your needs.

Select souce: Select DVD-video disc here to clone your DVD.

Choose target: Choose DVD folder to continue.

Start clone:Click”Start” to begin your DVD Clone Mac.

learn more on: how to edit DVD file with DVD Copy for Mac.

How to connect your Mac and Xbox 360

If, like me, you have your Xbox 360 placed near your wifi-enabled computer, but away from your wireless router or modem, then you'll want to take advantage of the Xbox's ability to "borrow" your computer's internet connection. For Windows users, this process is simple; it's just a matter of "bridging" your computer's wifi connection to your PC's internet port which is plugged into your Xbox. For Mac users, the process is not so easy. What follows is a guide for getting your Xbox 360 to accept Mac OS X's internet sharing option.
Before you start configuring, open up Terminal (in Applications -> Utilities) and type "ifconfig en0" (zero, not a capital-o). You're looking for the bit that says "inet xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx". In my case, the number I get here is 192.168.2.1 Second, note down the IP address of your wireless router, which in my case is 192.168.0.1

On your Mac
1. Connect your Mac to your wireless internet connection
2. Connect your Xbox 360 to your Mac via Ethernet
3. In System Preferences -> Sharing, enable Internet Sharing between your Airport and Ethernet connection

On your Xbox 360
1. Start up your Xbox and navigate to the Network settings menu
2. Under IP address, enter the number you got from the "ifconfig en0" command earlier on, but with the final number one place higher. In my case, I take the 192.168.2.1, and input 192.168.2.2 in the IP address box on my Xbox 360.
3. Under subnet, input 255.255.255.0
4. Under router/gateway, enter the number you got earlier from the "ifconfig en0" command. In my case, that's "192.168.2.1"
5. Move onto DNS. Enter the IP address of your wireless router (in my case, "192.168.0.1") in both the primary and secondary IP address fields
6. Leave PPPoE and advanced settings blank (i.e. OFF and Automatic)
7. You should now be able to connect to Xbox Live via your internet sharing Mac

This guide shows the connection of Mac and Xbox 360 is not so difficult. You can try it by yourself.

Apps Are Ascendant, but the Mobile Web Isn’t Going Away

The mobile app ecosystem is really big, and growing really fast. And if you’re a start-up that specializes in serving up ads to apps, as Greystripe does, you should be in great shape.

So why is the company announcing that it’s no longer just focusing on mobile apps, but the mobile Web, too?

Because the mobile Web is also really big, says CEO Michael Chang. And while it’s been ignored a bit over the past few years, his bet is that publishers and advertisers will be looking at it with renewed enthusiasm.

One big reason to embrace mobile Web sites: In theory, publishers can build a single site instead of building separate apps for different phones and different operating systems. Another big one: Publishers have complete control of their own sites–no battling with Apple (AAPL) over app store approval.

This is what Google (GOOG) was getting at when it introduced a new YouTube mobile Web site this summer, designed to replace the dedicated app it had built for the iPhone and other handsets. The message: You don’t have to use apps if the browser works well.

Part of this is a business-model debate, and part of it is technical, and you’ll be hearing more about it for sometime. But the nice thing for consumers is that they can pretty much ignore it, because one way or another they’re getting cool stuff on their phones: It’s up to everyone else to figure out how it’s going to get there, and who’s going to foot the bill.

Here’s a chat I had with Chang about the topic, as well as other mobile news, like Apple’s recent peace offering to Adobe (ADBE) and Google’s AdMob.

Italy’s Fastweb Joins Rivals as Broadband Prices Fall

Carsten Schloter, who was drafted as an emergency boss at Italian telecom company Fastweb SpA in April, is trying to figure out how to break through a wall the company has hit.

Over the past decade Fastweb has spent €5 billion, or about $6.34 billion, in laying its own fiber-optic networks, reaching two million homes in Milan, Rome, Turin and other big Italian cities. Fiber can carry large amounts of Internet traffic much faster than conventional copper wires, allowing Fastweb to offer “triple-play” packages that include phone, TV and Internet service.

Fastweb lured big-spending clients from Telecom Italia SpA, the former state-owned monopoly. These clients included Italian corporations and public administration offices, garnering more than 17 percent of Italy’s corporate broadband market.

But prices for broadband service have fallen in recent years, forcing Fastweb to rein in investments on fiber. To reach clients beyond its own network, Fastweb is stuck renting lines on the aging network of its larger rival, former monopoly Telecom Italia. Most of Telecom Italia’s lines, however, enter Italian homes in the form of copper wire originally intended for telephone traffic, meaning Fastweb can’t market potentially more profitable services, such as high-definition television.

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Russia Uses Microsoft to Suppress Dissent

It was late one afternoon in January when a squad of plainclothes police officers arrived at the headquarters of a prominent environmental group here. They brushed past the staff with barely a word and instead set upon the computers before carting them away.

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How to transfer music from iPod

Basically, there is a need for you to transfer music from iPod with iPod Rip and iPod Rip for Mac to avoid your files are lost. Now, I guide you how to Rip your iPod to hard drives with Aiseesoft iPod to Computer Transfer. So you don’t need to worry about losing anything.

Step 1: Download Aiseesoft iPod to Computer Transfer and install.

Step 2: Launch the program
Double-click the icon to run the software; or launch it from the “Start” Menu.
Step 3: Rip iPod files.
1) Run the software, and connect your iPod/iPhone to your computer via USB cable. After done, the iPod/iPhone icon and its library and playlists will appear in the Device list.
2) Open the library/playlist that you want to export files, and then check the music/movie you want to export in the file list to your computer.
3) Click the "Export to PC" button to select the destination of the exporting files and start ripping files

Otherwise, you could also choose the Export to local option from the Actions menu, and then export the files from your iPod/iPhone to actual device.

Tip: Use “Track filter” function to help you quickly browse your library by genre, artist and album. If you are using Mac, please use the iPod Rip for Mac software.
iPod Rip for Mac download.

How to download free youtube, yahoo, google, stream video for free

This step-by-step guide will show you how to download video from YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo and other video download website. Videos come from those websites are streaming videos. You need special software to capture steaming videos. Today we take YouTube video for example, write a guide about how to download streaming video to computer for free. This guide provides two methods:
1. with free online flv converter;
2. with firefox
This guide is also fit for other video websites as follow video list:
http://www.aiseesoft.com/article/free-download-video-list.html
3. How to transfer the downloaded youtube video to iPod PSP Zune iPhone Cell Phone and other MP3/MP4 player?

1. With free online flv converter
Step1. Open this website: http://vixy.net/. It's a free online FLV converter.
Step2. Then go to YouTube http://www.youtube.com and find a video that you love. Copy the URL that in the Red box. Like this format: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdUUx5FdySs



Step3. Paste your video file URL to the input box (figure as follow), choose the right format you want. If you want to edit the video, AVI is a good choice. And MP4 is fit for iPod, PSP, Zune, Apple TV and other MP4 players. This online converter also can rip audio to MP3. Then wait for the conversion.



Step4. When the conversion finished, we got the download link of the output video. Click the download link to download the video and save in your computer (remember where you save it in). Done.

2. With Firefox
If you have Firefox browser, you can follow these steps.
Step1. Install the videodownloader extension. This is a free plug-in for Firefox. It enables you capture streaming video from website. Here is the Download link:
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2390
Step2. After installing videodownloader, restart Firefox. In the bottom right, you'll see a little box. Go to the video you want to download, double click that little box, and select download link. Then you could download the streaming video you want. (Note, you have to rename the file extension from “html” to “flv”)





You have to rename the file extension from “html” to “flv” when you save the link. (Make sure your compute is show file extension)

3. How to transfer youtube video to iPod PSP Zune Phone and other MP3/MP4 player?
For iPod: if your download youtube video already is MP4 video, drag it to your iTunes library (or click iTunes "file" -> "add files to library"), plug in your iPod to computer, and then select your iPod device on the left panel of iTunes, click "Movies" tab, check the videos you want to sync and click "Apply", done.
If your downloaded YouTube video is not MP4 video, you have to convert it to iPod format at first, take a look at this free iPod converter, it embeds an iPod manager that can convert and transfer YouTube video to iPod directly without iTunes, here is a step by step guide about it:
http://www.aiseesoft.com/article/ipod-movie-converter.html
For PSP: PSP is the same as iPod, they are both support MP4 video, if you have converted the YouTube video to MP4 with above method, you can copy the MP4 video directly to the "Video" folder in your memory stick (if there is no "Video" folder in your memory stick, you can create by yourself). If your downloaded YouTube video is not MP4 video, you have to convert it to PSP format at first, take a look at this PSP Movie converter, it t can convert and transfer YouTube video to psp directly, fully support all firmware version of PSP, here is a step by step guide about it:
http://www.aiseesoft.com/article/psp-movie-converter.html
For Zune: Zune can play WMV video, if you have converted your download YouTube video to zune format, then open the Zune software, drag the wmv video to your Zune software, plug in your Zune to computer, and then Zune software should detect your Zune automatically, then click "Start to sync", the video will be transfered to Zune player.
If your downloaded YouTube video is not WMV video, you have to convert it to Zune format, take a look at this free Zune converter, it can convert video to Zune format, it can also convert YouTube video to MP3 for other player, here is a step by step guide about it:
http://www.aiseesoft.com/article/zune-movie-converter.html
For cell phone: Cell phone accepts 3GP video and MP4 video, just convert your downloaded YouTube video to the proper format, connect your cell phone to computer, and then copy the videos to your cell phone memory card. If you don't know how to convert video, take a look at this step by step guide:
http://www.aiseesoft.com/article/total-video-converter.html

How to convert DVD, Movie, Music to iPhone ringtone and put ringtone on iPhone, iPhone 3G

Everyone wants his iPhone ringtone to be personalized,and sometimes want to make iPhone ringtone from a clip of their favorite DVD, movie or songs. Here I found a easy way to achieve this target for iPhone ringtone, hope it helpful.

The tools you need are Aiseesoft DVD to iPhone Suite and iPhone PC Suite (free), download links are as following:
Aiseesoft iPhone Converter Suite:
http://www.aiseesoft.com/downloads/dvd-to-iphone-suite.exe

iPhone PC Suite (Totally free)
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/iPhone_PC_Suite.htm

Note: iPhone PC Suite has to run under Microsoft .NET Framework, you can download it from: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=333325fd-ae52-4e35-b531-508d977d32a6&DisplayLang=en

The iPhone ringtone guide is composed of 3 parts:
1. How to extract audio to ringtone from DVD?
2. How convert audio and video to iPhone ringtone?
3. How to sync/ put ringtone to iPhone without iTunes

Part 1 How to make iPhone ringtone from DVD?
Install Aiseesoft DVD to iPhone Suite and run it. For Windows Vista user, you may have to run this program as Administrator, right click the program shortcut and click “Run as Administrator”.
Run the DVD to iPhone Converter load your DVD by clicking “Load DVD” button, you also can load IFO file from your hard drive by clicking “Load IFO File” button.
Click drop down list and select iPhone supported format (AAC, MP3, WAV, etc.) you want:

You can also customize the sample rate, bit rate and other parameters of your iPhone ringtone by click “setting”



To extract a clip from DVD to iPhone ringtone, you can click button “trim”, set the start time and end time.



Then click “Start” to extract iPhone ringtone from you DVD, Done.

Part 2 How to make iPhone ringtone from videos and songs?
Start Aiseesoft iPhone Movie Converter, then click “Add” button to load video file which you want to extract iPhone ringtone from(You can also load audio file to convert music to iPhone ringtone).




Click drop down list and select iPhone supported format (AAC, MP3, WAV, etc.) you want:



The operation is similar as extracting iPhone audio from DVD with DVD to iPhone Converter, set sample rate, bit rate and other parameters of your iPhone ringtone by click “setting”

Most users’ iPhone ringtone are always short, so you may want to convert a clip from movie to set as ringtone. Click button “trim” to set the start and end point of your iPhone ringtone.

Then click “Start” to convert a clip to iPhone ringtone from your movies or songs.

Next part: How to sync/ put ringtone to iPhone/iPhone 3G without iTunes

Free Trial: Download Aiseesoft DVD to iPhone Suite

Social Music Mystery! What Happened to Apple’s Ping-Facebook Connection?

Why isn’t Ping playing with Facebook? It’s Facebook’s fault, says Apple CEO Steve Jobs: The social network demanded “onerous terms” to connect with Apple’s social music play.

But clearly there’s more to the story.

Because while Facebook isn’t connected to Ping right now, it had been up through the service’s launch last night. And even for some time after that.

When Jobs demoed the service onstage yesterday, screenshots showed an ability to invite Facebook friends via the “Facebook Connect” service, as Business Insider’s Dan Frommer noted. And in an interview with Kara Swisher following the event, Apple marketing boss talked up the Facebook Connect option.

And, in fact, Apple’s promotional Ping page still mentions the ability to “find even more music fans with a quick search, by sending email invites, or by connecting to your Facebook account.”

And for a brief period after the service opened last night, new users did get a chance to invite friends via Facebook — you can still see the Facebook app page here.

I’m not sure that the service ever worked, though: When I tried the Facebook option, I got this puzzling error message: “We are unable to find any Facebook friends that you are not following on iTunes Ping. Check again soon.”

So. Anyone at Apple, or Facebook, want to clarify what happened?

Hewlett-Packard Raises 3Par Bid–Again

The bidding war over 3Par is beginning to look more like a game of Texas Hold’em.

This morning Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) again raised its bid for the data storage provider, trumping a superior bid made by Dell (DELL) just hours before.

HP offered $33 a share for 3Par (PAR), surpassing Dell’s counteroffer of $32 a share and pushing the total value of the deal to $2.4 billion. HP’s latest bid is more than three times 3Par’s $9.65 closing price on Aug. 13, the day before Dell’s first bid was revealed.

PREVIOUSLY

• Will Dell Bail on 3Par?
• HP’s New Bid For 3Par: $30 per Share. 3Par’s New Share Price: $31.44.
• HP Raises 3Par Bid to $27 Per Share
• After Harried Sofa-Cushion Search, Dell Outbids HP for 3Par
• Dell Has Three Days to Top HP’s 3Par Bid
• Dell Prepping Higher Bid for 3Par
• HP, Dell in Bidding War for 3Par
• Dell Buys 3Par for $1.15 Billion

The Jewelry Prescription

It’s a simple step, but one many doctors forget to remind patients to take: Wear a medical-alert bracelet.

A growing number of American adults and children face complex medical conditions like heart disease and diabetes. They may have drug or food allergies, suffer from disorders like autism, or take medications like the blood thinner coumadin that medical staff should know about in an emergency.

New bracelets and other medical-identification systems can fill in first responders on practically a patient’s complete health history. They’re a far cry from the simple identification bracelets of the past, which with a few engraved words informed medics that a person was, perhaps, allergic to penicillin. They can steer first responders to a secure website or toll-free phone number, or initiate a text message, to get the medical and prescription history of a patient who may be unconscious or unable to talk about their condition.

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