A 75-year-old woman was recently arrested by the Georgian police after she single-handedly cut off Internet connections in Georgia and neighbouring Armenia.
AFP reports that the pensioner was digging for scrap metal with the intention of stealing it when she stumbled upon a fibre-optic cable which runs through Georgia to Armenia, forcing thousands of Internet users in both countries to lose Internet connection for several hours. Georgian Railway Telecom, the company that owns the cable, said that the latest damage was serious, causing 90 percent of private and corporate Internet users in Armenia to lose access for nearly 12 hours while also hitting Georgian Internet service providers.
“I cannot understand how this lady managed to find and damage the cable. It has robust protection and such incidents are extremely rare,” Giorgi Ionatamishvili, Georgian Railway Telecom’s marketing head, told AFP.
Apparently, this wasn’t the first time it happened. In 2009, another scavenger damaged a fibre-optic cable while hunting for scrap metal in the impoverished ex-Soviet state, forcing many Georgians’ Internet connections to get interrupted.
The woman has been charged with damaging property and could face up to three years in prison if convicted.
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MLB leans toward extra replay for 2012, report says
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Resident Evil Mercenaries VS. hits iOS <b>News</b> - iPhone - Page 1 <b>...</b>
Read our iPhone news of Resident Evil Mercenaries VS. hits iOS.
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Groundwater radiation level at nuke plant rises: TEPCO | Kyodo <b>News</b>
The concentration levels of radioactive iodine and cesium in groundwater near the troubled Nos. 1 and 2 reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have increased up to several dozen times in one week, suggesting that toxic ...
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Video calls were a mainstay of classic sci-fi films, and even today there’s something almost magical about seeing your friends and family on the screen of a portable device. Video calling has been around for some time, but it’s only really in the past year or so that its got more attention among regular users. That’s thanks in no small part to Apple and FaceTime, as found on the iPhone 4, iPad 2 and other gadgets from the company’s range. Read on as we give FaceTime the full SlashGear 101 treatment!
So Apple invented video calling, right?
No, not at all, though they did do a lot to make it easier to use – just as long as you have the right hardware. Video calling is actually a part of the 3G standard, which – if the carrier and whatever phone you’re using supports it, which isn’t the case in the US – has been available since around 2003. Unfortunately a combination of high pricing, poor understanding by users, mediocre quality and patchy reliability meant this form of video calling has never really taken off.
Apple’s FaceTime takes advantage of the company’s tight control over the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and MacBook software, which has allowed it to polish the video calling experience to the point where everyday use is possible. Now FaceTime is available to anybody at the touch of an on-screen button.
Do I need an Apple phone to use FaceTime?
Not necessarily a phone, but definitely something with the Apple logo. FaceTime was first supported on the iPhone 4, which was Apple’s first mobile device with a front-facing camera (i.e. one that looks at the user, rather than out the back of the handset). The latest iPod touch and iPad 2 both have front-facing cameras and FaceTime support as well, and Apple has released a FaceTime app for its Mac and MacBook computers so they can join in the fun as well. FaceTime comes free on the mobile devices and the very latest Macs, and is a $0.99 download from the Mac App Store for earlier Mac owners.
Okay, so how do I use it?
It’s pretty simple, just as Apple was aiming for. On the iPhone you make a voice call in the normal way and then tap the FaceTime button on-screen to switch to video. On the iPod touch and iPad 2, you start a video call in the FaceTime app. You’ll need an Apple account in order to make and receive calls, since that’s used as the “phone number” for devices other than the iPhone 4.
Currently, FaceTime video calls can only be made when you have a WiFi connection, not when you’re using the mobile network for data. That’s a limitation Apple has put in place itself, though the company has said it is working on removing it in the future.
I’m not into Apple, can I video call with something else?
You certainly can, though the process gets a bit trickier. Various apps are available for Android and other mobile phone platforms which promise video calls, sometimes over not only WiFi but the 3G mobile networks too. That means you can make video calls when away from your home network or a WiFi hotspot, as long as your signal is strong enough.
Skype, Fring and Qik are all among the companies offering video calling apps, though their effectiveness often varies on a phone-by-phone basis. Not all phones have front-facing cameras, either, though they’re becoming more common on the latest handsets. A future SlashGear 1010 feature will look at the best video calling apps if FaceTime isn’t your thing.
Apple has said it plans to open up FaceTime to other manufacturers, so that non-Apple phones can make and receive calls too, but so far there’s no sign of that actually happening.
More information at Apple’s FaceTime page.
China is a notoriously tough market for American brands. The last few years has seen tech giants like Google struggle to do business due to restrictive censorship and retail giants like Best Buy and Home Depot have found that heavy price competition makes it hard to gain a toehold. Yet, despite the conventional wisdom, Apple’s business in China is booming and it’s not lower prices but better presentation that’s driving their success.
The Chinese economy is having some of its best years ever due to the rising world demand for consumer electronics, much of which is manufactured in China’s city-sized factories. The Mercury News reports that this has led to the average Chinese citizen being more flush with cash than ever before and ready to spend it on what would previously be deemed as unaffordable luxury.
Paul French of Shanghai-based Access Asia indicates that the increase in middle class affluence is behind the increase in purchasing power. “There is now enough of an urban middle class with enough money to afford Apple products. Five years ago — or even two or three years ago — there weren’t enough of those people.”
Five years ago, Apple didn’t have a retail store in China, now it has four, including a stunning split-level glass and metal flagship store in Sanlitun, an area of Beijing known more for its nightlife than its retail outlets. Those stores aren’t barely surviving either, with $2.6 billion in revenue this year, four times what we saw last year from Apple in China. This should mean that Apple is fighting the price war well in China, offering its products for less than they can be purchased in the US, but that’s not actually true. In fact, Apple sells a comparatively specced 13-inch Macbook Air for $180 more in China than it does stateside.
This success seems to fly in the face of conventional wisdom, typically premium products have not sold well in cost conscious China. Some, like Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, say that Apple will have to eventually compete on price or risk losing the Chinese consumer. “The iPhone is going to be huge in China. That’s a given.” he tells the Mercury News. “But if Apple wants it to flow out across China, it has to come up with lower price points.”
Yet Apple shows no signs of slowing down in the Chinese market, which is projected to account for 10 percent of Apple’s revenue within 5 years.
When asked, locals said that in a country where the people like to try products out before they purchase them, Apple is doing the best job of presenting those products. Apple’s retail stores offer the Chinese consumer a chance to test the products in a beautiful and visually stimulating atmosphere and those efforts are paying off with big sales numbers. This kind of attention to the senses and emotions of the consumer wasn’t pioneered by Apple of course, but they are one of the first major companies to bring that kind of experience to China’s city centers in a big way.
This difference in the way that the products are presented is doing its job in separating Apple’s products from the rest of the pack almost everywhere that its retail stores are located, but nowhere is that effect felt more than in China. A country where consumers are hungry for polished products presented in a stimulating atmosphere and they finally have the cash to afford them.
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Wi-Fi Photo Transfer is a free app that makes it insanely simple to download photos from your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad.
We've been using iPhoto, jailbreak tweaks, and Image Capture to download photos to our computer. None of these methods are as quick, as painless, or as wireless as Wi-Fi Photo Transfer.
There isn't a single setting to alter once you download the app. It works by making the photos folder on your device (DCIM, if you're an iOS explorer) visible from your web browser so you can download photos straight to your computer. Your computer and device must be on the same Wi-Fi network for this to work.
You can view all your photos in a convenient thumbnail view to select multiple items, or you can download them one by one (in various sizes, too).
This free app is a can't-miss. In fact, we used it to download the screen-grabs for this very post you're reading now.
Price: free from the App Store (universal app)
NOTE: if you're downloading screen captures you've taken on your iDevice, this app mislabels them as JPG so you get an error trying to open them in Photoshop. Once you download the screen captures, change the JPG extension to PNG in the file name and you'll be all set. This note is only for iDevice screen captures, achieved by holding down the Home button and Sleep button simultaneously for a second.
(Via App Storm)
The PPIC study Kolko co-authored sheds light on why historically California’s economy has grown on pace with the national economy even though it usually ranks low in surveys of states whose laws are favorable to business.
While the research suggests many factors that determine long-term economic growth lie beyond the reach of policy makers, Kolko cautioned that policy could still someday trump warm, sunny days on the Pacific coast.
“If California loses its ability to incubate and encourage fast growing industries to be here, that would be unfortunate” in the long term, she said.
Kolko identified two policies in particular, a simpler tax structure rather than a lower tax rate, and a lower share of government expenditure on welfare and transfer payments, as means of hastening economic expansion.
(© 2011 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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Groundwater radiation level at nuke plant rises: TEPCO | Kyodo <b>News</b>
The concentration levels of radioactive iodine and cesium in groundwater near the troubled Nos. 1 and 2 reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have increased up to several dozen times in one week, suggesting that toxic ...
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New Google <b>News</b> for Opera Mini - Official Google Mobile Blog
So we have rolled out a redesigned Google News for Opera Mini in all 29 languages and 70 editions of Google News. This includes an enhanced homepage featuring richer snippets, thumbnail images, links to videos and section content ...
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