California passes bill legalizing voice-activated hands-free texting while driving
California is taking a step back from laws that place an outright ban on texting and emailing while driving with a modification to the state’s vehicle code that was signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown on Friday. The “Freedom to Communicate” bill adds an exception to the original anti-texting law — which accounted for a 47 percent drop is cellphone-related traffic deaths — for devices that are “specifically designed and configured to allow voice-operated and hands-free operation to dictate, send, or listen to a text-based communication.”
http://mobile.theverge.com/2012/7/17/3165461/california-legalizes-voice-activated-hands-free-texting
Google Adds Panoramic Antarctica Images to Street View
Google is bringing the freezing Antarctic weather to the comfort of your climate-controlled home.
Today, the search giant announced additional panoramic imagery of historic Antarctic locations as part of the juggernaut’s World Wonders site, joining Asian, Australian, European, and North and South American locations.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2407262,00.asp
Already Valued at $4B, China’s Xiaomi Has Declared War on Apple
China’s answer to Apple occupies the 12th floor of a staid office tower in a sprawling commercial area of Beijing. It has no signage on the building’s exterior, so the only clue that suggests I’m in the right place is a standard directory plaque in the lobby that lists, among other companies, the name “Xiaomi Corporation.”
http://pandodaily.com/2012/07/17/already-valued-at-4b-chinas-xiaomi-has-declared-war-on-apple/
NXP’s new audio chip pumps up the volume for mobile device speakers
Dutch company NXP — best known for it’s NFC solutions — introduced a new audio chip today that’s set to significantly improve the sound quality of the micro-speakers commonly built into mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.
http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/17/nxps-new-audio-chip-pumps-up-the-volume-for-mobile-device-speak/
AT&T gets into shared data: ‘Mobile Share’ plans coming late August
Just over a month after Verizon announced Share Everything, AT&T is getting into the burgeoning shared data game (as it’s been saying it would) with Mobile Share, a tiered set of plans that allow subscribers to split a single bucket of gigabytes across up to ten devices with unlimited messages and voice.
http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/18/3166327/att-shared-data-mobile-share-plans
Judge rejects secrecy bids in Apple vs. Samsung battle
A U.S. judge rejected several requests by Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd to keep portions of key documents out of public view in their high-stakes patent litigation battle set for trial later this month.
Apple and Samsung, the world’s largest consumer electronics corporations, are waging legal war in several countries, accusing each other of patent violations as they vie for supremacy in a fast-growing market for mobile devices.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/18/us-apple-samsung-ruling-idUSBRE86H05520120718?irpc=932
Facebook Earns 58% More Per Ad Than Last Year, Mobile Ads Clicked 4X More Than Twitter Ads
Facebook yesterday saw a decline in share price on a report of falling user numbers in key markets like the U.S. and Europe, but in a sign of how it is firming up its business, Facebook is also making significantly more money and getting more sticky with its advertising
http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/18/facebook-earns-58-more-per-ad-than-last-year-mobile-ads-clicked-4x-more-than-twitter-ads/
Google Doesn’t Know How to Spend $50 Billion, Says PayPal Co-Founder
Conference panels are often sedate, friendly affairs. But that wasn’t the case when Google chairman Eric Schmidt went up against Peter Thiel, PayPal co-founder, investor and well-known libertarian gadfly.
The debate at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference in Aspen Monday night tackled the question of whether technology has improved our lives over the past 30 years. Schmidt argued that it had; Thiel claimed progress had stagnated because tech has largely retreated from the real world into a virtual one.
http://mashable.com/2012/07/17/google-schmidt-thiel/
Covert FBI Power to Obtain Phone Data Faces Rare Test
Early last year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation sent a secret letter to a phone company demanding that it turn over customer records for an investigation. The phone company then did something almost unheard of: It fought the letter in court.
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052702303567704577519213906388708-lMyQjAxMTAyMDEwNzExNDcyWj.html
Dotcom Extradition Judge Steps Down After “U.S. Enemy” Comment
The New Zealand judge handling the extradition case of Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom has dramatically stepped down from the role. Speaking at the NetHui conference last week, Judge David Harvey had voiced his feelings on the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, describing the United States as “the enemy”. Accepting that the comments could lead people to question his impartiality in the case, Harvey has surrendered his role.
http://torrentfreak.com/dotcom-extradition-judge-steps-down-after-u-s-enemy-comment-120718/
With 110M Monthly Visitors, Dailymotion Debuts Update to Cloud Service
Today Paris and NYC-based Dailymotion, a web video platform that reaches more than 110 million unique visitors per month, announced an update to its Dailymotion Cloud product, which makes its suite of video publishing tools available on a white label basis. Developers and online broadcasters can use Dailymotion Cloud to upload, host and stream video on the web and mobile devices, and generate income through ads. The platform originally launched in 2010 with broadcast and streaming options, and is adding features like monetization, livestreaming, and added security features today. According to Dailymotion Cloud Director Florent Pajani, this puts Dailymotion in the same category as other online video platforms like Brightcove and Ooyala.
http://betakit.com/2012/07/18/dailymotion-launches-new-version-of-dailymotion-cloud-publisher-platform
