zacharye writes "Verizon Wireless on Wednesday finally announced the upcoming launch of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. The world's first Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich phone with 4G LTE support will become available beginning tomorrow for $299.99 with a new two-year service agreement. "
redletterdave writes "Comedian Louis C.K., real name Louis Szekely, took a major risk by openly selling his latest stand-up special, 'Louis C.K. Live at the Beacon Theater,' for only $5 on his website and refusing to put any DRM restrictions on the video, which made it easily susceptible to pirating and torrenting. Four days later, Louis CK's goodwill experiment has already paid off: The 44-year-old comic now reports making a profit of about $200,000, after banking more than $500,000 in revenue from the online-only sale. The special, which has sold 110,000 copies so far, is only available on Louis CK's website."
destinyland writes "Amazon's released their list of 2011's best-selling books, revealing that 40% of the best-selling ebooks didn't even make it onto their list of the best-selling print books. The #1 and #2 best-selling ebooks of the year weren't even available in print editions, while four of the top 10 best-selling print books didn't make it into the top 100 best-selling ebooks. 'It couldn't be more clear that Kindle owners are choosing their material from an entirely different universe of books,' notes one Kindle site, which points out that five of the best-selling ebooks came from two million-selling ebook authors — Amanda Hocking and John Locke — who are still awaiting the release of their books in print. And five of Amazon's best-selling ebooks were Kindle-only "Singles,' including a Stephen King short story which actually outsold another King novel that he'd released in both ebook and print formats. And Neal Stephenson's 'Reamde' was Amazon's #99 best-selling print book of 2011, though it didn't even make it onto their list of the 100 best-selling ebooks of the year. 'People who own Kindles are just reading different books than the people who buy printed books,' reports the Kindle site, which adds '2011 may be remembered as the year that hundreds of new voices finally found their audiences.'"
First time accepted submitter BenLinders writes "The Economics of Software Quality provides solutions to quantify software quality, helping you to manage software development and maintenance. It contains software quality data that you can use to build a business case to improve the quality of your software, and decide upon processes and techniques that can help to implement the needed improvements in your organization." Read below for the rest of Ben's review.
First time accepted submitter lacaprup writes "Chinese-based hacking of 760 different corporations reflects a growing, undeclared cyber war. From giants like Intel and Google to unknowns like iBahn, the Chinese hackers are accused of stealing everything isn't nailed down. Simply put, it is easier and cheaper to steal rather than develop the legal way. China has consistently denied it has any responsibility for hacking that originated from servers on its soil, but — based on what is known of attacks from China, Russia and other countries — a declassified estimate of the value of the blueprints, chemical formulas and other material stolen from U.S. corporate computers in the last year reached almost $500 billion"
Hugh Pickens writes "Time's editor Rick Stengel announced on The Today Show that 'The Protester' is Time Magazine's Person of the Year: From the Arab Spring to Athens, from Occupy Wall Street to Moscow. 'For capturing and highlighting a global sense of restless promise, for upending governments and conventional wisdom, for combining the oldest of techniques with the newest of technologies to shine a light on human dignity and, finally, for steering the planet on a more democratic though sometimes more dangerous path for the 21st century.' The initial gut reaction on Twitter seems to be one of derision, as Time has gone with a faceless human mass instead of picking a single person like Tunisian fruit vendor Mohamed Bouazizi who Time mentions in the story and is widely acknowledged as the person who set off the 'Arab Spring.' In 2006, Time chose "You" with a mirrored cover to much disappointment, picked the personal computer as 'Machine of the Year' and Earth as 'Planet of the Year,' proving 'that it should probably just be "Story of the Year" if they aren't going to acknowledge an actual person,' writes Dashiell Bennett. 'By not picking any one individual, they've basically chosen no one.'"
walterbyrd writes "Google announced today that it will donate $11.5M to groups dedicated to ending modern day slavery. 'In what is believed to be the largest-ever corporate grant devoted to the advocacy, intervention and rescue of people being held, forced to work or provide sex against their will, Google said it chose organizations with proven records in combating slavery.'"
PerlJedi writes "Most nations with nuclear power capabilities have been re-assessing the risk/benefit of nuclear power reactors following the Fukushima plant melt down, a newly released study suggests the U.S. should expand its nuclear power production using 'Small Modular Reactors'. 'The reports assessed the economic feasibility [PDF] of classical, gigawatt-scale reactors and the possible new generation of modular reactors. The latter would have a generating capacity of 600 megawatts or less, would be factory-built as modular components, and then shipped to their desired location for assembly.'"
First time submitter StatureOfLiberty writes "The California Near Space Project launched a high altitude weather balloon from San Jose, California 4:00 PM local time Sunday afternoon (Dec 11). Over the past 3 days it managed to cross the United States and then the Atlantic Ocean. The balloon passed the coastline of Spain about 12:40 AM (US Eastern Standard Time) Wednesday morning (Dec 14). It has since popped and landed in the Mediterranean Sea. This is a huge accomplishment. The previous distance record was about 3,300 miles. This one traveled about 6,200 miles. Enthusiasts tracked the balloon via the web throughout most of the trip thanks to a ham radio technology called APRS which received data transmitted by the balloon and logged it to databases on the internet. Thanks to APRS stations around the world (some of whom changed their normal listening frequencies to help with the tracking process) data was available for most of the flight."
jrepin writes with a snippet from the release announcement of Plasma Active Two: "Mobile devices that adapt to who you are, reflecting what you are doing when you are doing it. This concept is at the heart of the Plasma Active user experience. Plasma Active One was released in October 2011, providing early adopters the first opportunity to experience Activities on a tablet. Since then, the design and development team behind this open source touch interface has been hard at work on an update. ... information about real-world usage enabled the team to improve the end-user experience significantly over the past two months."
jfruhlinger writes "Nokia's Windows Phones haven't hit the U.S., but at least one company executive thinks they'll be a slam dunk, since young people have soured on the iPhone and find Android baffling. Of course, much of the Internet commentariat found his remarks even more baffling. Is he right, is he delusional, or is he just trying to build buzz for his company's products the best he can?"
ExE122 writes "Colorado has approved new measures taking a tough stance on the disclosure of chemicals used in fracking. The new law is 'requiring companies to disclose the concentrations of chemicals in addition to the chemicals themselves.' Fracking is a controversial method of natural gas extraction that raises concerns about health and safety issues to surrounding communities. This measure is said to be tougher than similar measures passed in Texas earlier this year."
bizwriter writes "A new patent for Amazon just put the company squarely in the location tracking controversy. It covers a system to not only track, through mobile devices, where individuals or aggregated users have been, but to determine where they're likely to go next to better target ads, coupons, or other messages that could appear on a mobile phone or on displays that individuals are likely to see in their travels. The system could also use someone's identity to further tailor the marketing according to demographic information."
A security testing firm today said a recent report that named Google's Chrome as the most secured browser was flawed -- and part of a campaign by Google to undermine Mozilla's Firefox.
Eight former staff members of the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee are now lobbying on behalf of companies or groups supporting controversial copyright enforcement legislation in Congress.
New details have emerged in Montclair State University's lawsuit against Oracle in connection with a troubled ERP (enterprise resource planning) project.
Comedian Louis CK bets on fans' better instincts -- and they happily pay for his online offering. Ball's in your court, RIAA.
We may see super high-resolution displays in ultra-thin Ultrabooks and MacBook Pros as early as the first half of next year.
How will Google respond to Siri? Think the Enterprise's computer.
A Utah jury has begun deliberating over a US$1 billion antitrust lawsuit Novell first brought against Microsoft in 2004. Observers of the case expect the jury to...
Want a tasty sandwich but don't want to make it yourself? Check out the sarnie-compiling, popcorn-cooking PR2 robots!
Businesses that want to take advantage of the maturing cloud marketplace in 2012 can learn from some common mistakes others have made when moving to...
The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) has delayed ruling on a patent case brought against smartphone maker HTC by Apple.
A leading consumer group claims there is a wide gap of what kinds of protections carriers say they offer and what they really do.
T-Mobile will be the first U.S. operator to offer a Nokia phone running Windows Mobile when it starts selling the Lumia 710 early next year.
NASA plans on collecting samples from moving space comets by sticking them to a cannon fired harpoon.
Users can choose between a premium membership costing $9.99 per month or a basic $3.99 per month membership.
Google is pulling a number of fraudulent apps that dupe users out of money, but don't fall into the trap of thinking that fraud is just an Android thing.
Computer giant IBM has made legally binding concessions to European Union regulators in order to avoid a fine for anticompetitive practices.
Microsoft will give away free Windows Phones to five Android users with the worst malware horror stories.
The fourth Humble Indie Bundle is now available, and it's probably the best one yet.
Ice Cream Sandwich supports embedded HTML5 audio and video, something the iPad and iPhone can't do, but it fell short in a head-to-head test of HTML5 features.
The National Transportation Safety Board hopes gadget makers will add features that encourage people to stop using portable electronic devices while driving.
Microsoft’s SkyDrive has one major advantage over its rivals: it offers 25GB of free storage for your documents or media files.
Of the more than 50 CEOs of top technology companies, Steve Ballmer's rating was way down toward the bottom, at 35 percent.
The latest version of Google's SDK (software development kit) for its cloud platform App Engine includes the High-Replication Datastore, which has been generally...
Google has released Chrome 16, a new stable version of its Web browser that addresses 15 high- and medium-risk vulnerabilities.
Zite is fundamentally different from Flipboard in that it uses your activity on Facebook or Twitter to help it begin to figure out what topics you’re interested in.
Microsoft has taken steps to make Office 365 more attractive to U.S. and European customers who have to comply with regulatory requirements related to data...
Nokia thinks it can muscle its way into the smartphone market because the youth of today is fed up and overwhelmed with current choices.
Graphics processor maker Nvidia expects gaming systems will reach a performance of "tens of teraflops" by the end of the decade.
The Android blogosphere is abuzz that Google might have a Siri killer called Majel out by year-end.
Telecommunications vendor Nokia Siemens Networks is further limiting the way it does business in Iran, as the international stance against the country is...
Japanese mobile platform operator DeNA said Wednesday it will offer its core game software on the Aliyun mobile OS developed by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba...
Salesforce.com's first data center in Japan has begun operations, the company said Wednesday.
Google has acquired Clever Sense, the developer of Alfred, a personalized restaurant and bars recommendations app, for an undisclosed price, the companies said...
LightSquared has submitted a significant new offer to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in its bid to use frequencies near the GPS band for a cellular...
Our exclusive survey reveals both Android and iOS consumers perceive a need for security software on their tablets and phones.
Keep friends guessing if you have a watch, calculator, or special code combination on your wrist with the extremely bizarre Keypad Watch.
Get almost half off the 12-megapixel canon PowerShot Elph 100 HS at Amazon.com.
Hackers use sophisticated tactics to overwhelm networks, both as tools of protests and as ruses to distract from serious crimes.
Three executives at Hitachi-LG Data Storage (HLDS) have agreed to plead guilty and serve prison time in the U.S. for their participation in a series of...
As another year draws to a close, we look back on the IT-related comments that stuck with us.
Sony's PlayStation Network hack, Steve Jobs' passing, and the Stop Online Piracy Act were just three of the top tech stories of 2011.
The $50 deal is one of those while-supplies-last offers.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board recommended on Tuesday that states outlaw the use of all electronic devices, while driving, including cellphones...
SAP executives provided new details about the company's plan to make the HANA in-memory database the focus of a sweeping reinvention of its software architecture...
The Consumer Electronics Association has switched its position on Internet sales taxes, with the huge trade group now supporting the collection of the tax.
A proposed amendment to the controversial copyright enforcement bill, the Stop Online Piracy Act, has not swayed many opponents to the legislation.
The latest edition of Skype's Android app lets you share video, photos and files with other Skype users.
Eclipse and Linux top the charts for openness, according to research firm Vision Mobile.
Desktop users will continue to be able to call any domestic number within the United States or Canada through the end of 2012.
Microsoft appears to be jumping in to iOS with both feet--launching apps for SkyDrive, OneNote, and XBox Live just in the past week, and with rumors of Microsoft Office iOS apps in the works.