IBLOG SPACE

We all know that Google is big on green. The company has huge investments in solar power, wind power, and more green sources of renewable energy. This green push isn’t something new at Google; it’s been going on for years. Way back in 2009 Google bought an abandoned paper mill located in Hamina, Finland at a price right at $52 million. Placing a high-tech datacenter for a company as big as Google inside a 56-year-old abandoned paper mill seems very strange at first glance. It doesn’t seem so strange when we look at the infrastructure inside the building, you can see straight away what attracted Google to the location. The old paper mill has a massive underground tunnel that runs from inside the building to the Gulf of Finland where it slurps up cold ocean water. That cold ocean water was originally used to cool a steam plant inside the paper mill. Google wants to use that massive tube that runs into the Gulf to grab cold ocean water to help cool the massive array of servers that will b

The axe is set to fall over at NEC Corp in Japan with just about one in 10 of its workers to be cut. NEC has announced that is set to lay off 10,000 workers as it attempts to claw its way out of the red and back into the black. One reason cited for the job losses is stiff competition posed from rivals from foreign countries such as Apple. NEC blames the poor performance and the job cuts on soft demand for its mobile phones. Another reason cited for the job cuts and the poor performance of the company is that foreign companies are pressing in on NEC’s traditional turf in the IT infrastructure realm inside Japan. Along with the significant job cuts, NEC is also warning that it is set to post a massive net loss of 100 billion yen or about $1.3 billion. That loss would be posted for the year ending March 31. That massive loss certainly caught analysts by surprise with expectations being a profit of 15 billion yen. Along with reports of job cuts and the giant loss, NEC is also slashing what

Secretive licensing deals and “insufficient transparency” could scupper Spotify and other cloud-jukebox services, U2 manager Paul McGuinness has warned, suggesting that “we’re unlikely to give [debut records] to Spotify” as the streaming music platform is more promotional than a money-spinner. McGuinness sees “the Spotify model” as part of the future of music, Digital Music News reports, but the supergroup manager also criticized confidentiality agreements between the service and labels as failing to show exactly what the benefits to musicians might be. “Spotify has yet to become popular with artists because artists don’t see the financial benefit of working with Spotify,” McGuinness believes. “That’s partly the fault of the labels, and the labels partly own Spotify.” Details of exactly how much Spotify pays each label and each artist per play are closely guarded secrets, though previous leaks have suggested the balance is tipped decidedly in the direction of record labels. According t

If you’re a fan of the Firefox Web browser, you know that things haven’t been going too well over Mozilla. The Firefox browser has been bleeding users to other browsers like Google Chrome to the point that it is actually dropped in rankings for users. The Firefox team over at Mozilla is intent on getting the users back and its daily builds show they are playing with new features, even if those features have apparently been pulled already. The current version of Firefox that Mozilla workers are crafting is Firefox 12. Recently, the daily builds showed up with a couple new features that are very reminiscent of Chrome features. Some fans of Firefox will be upset to hear that the features that were added and removed included one that many been waiting for, the new tab page. The other feature was the home tab. While the new tab page wasn’t part of Firefox test build for long, it was up long enough for people to see what it was about.

Google, Microsoft, PayPal, Facebook and other big names have announced a new anti-spam and phishing project, DMARC.org, creating a new system for email authentication that promises to learn from past attacks. “Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance” will use “a feedback loop between legitimate email senders and receivers to make impersonation more difficult” and, the companies hope, will eventually be adopted by the IETF as a standard. “Email phishing defrauds millions of people and companies every year, resulting in a loss of consumer confidence in email and the Internet as a whole. Industry cooperation – combined with technology and consumer education – is crucial to fight phishing” Brett McDowell, Chair of DMARC.org and Senior Manager of Customer Security Initiatives at PayPal According to DMARC, the widespread problems with spam and phishing today are the result of confusion and uncertainty between email providers over what security and authentication option

The New York Times tipped that a new eReader from Barnes & Noble is currently in the midst of getting its final touches. The new eReader from Barnes & Noble will be the fifth in its line of digital reading devices called the Nook. The details of the eReader are scant, but what we do know is that it is set to launch sometime this spring. Naturally, with the talk of new eReader comes rumors and speculation on what the device might be like. CNET reports that the executives at Barnes & Noble declined to give further comment on the new eReader, which in geek circles just fuels the flames. CNET thinks that perhaps the new tablet may be more iPad in size and price. However, there is nothing to suggest that that might be the case at this point. CNET points out can just as easily be a new eReader aiming at the low-end of the market. However, the low-end market is pretty well served in the eReader realm. Barnes & Noble is set to launch the line of Nook eReaders in Europe, specifi

T-Mobile UK has announced a new, truly-unlimited plan – The Full Monty – with no “fair-use” restrictions for heavy voice, text and data users. Set to accept new subscribers from February 1, the 24-month agreement also includes unlimited tethering, allowing you to use your phone as a way to get your tablet or laptop online without paying extra or running into caps. The Full Monty plan will kick off at £36 ($54) per month, though that will only include unlimited calls to other T-Mobile UK subscribers. Calls to other networks will come under a 2,000 minute limit. You’ll have to pay £41 ($64) per month or above to get truly unlimited calls across all the networks. T-Mobile will also offer various smartphones on the plans, including the iPhone 4S, Samsung Galaxy S II, HTC Sensation XE and BlackBerry 9900. Some will be offered free with a new agreement, and others will require an upfront charge of up to £99, tariff depending. Finally, there’ll be unlimited WiFi access through BT Openzone. Un

Sonyhas outed a trio of new Cyber-shot digital cameras, including a slimline flagship, the DSC-TX200V, and a pair of affordable point-and-shoots, the DSC-WX70 and WX50. The TX200V measures in at a pocket-friendly 95.5 x 58.3 x 16 mm but still manages to fit in an 18.2-megapixel Exmor R CMOS sensor, 26mm 5x optical zoom and a 3.3-inch Xtra Fine TruBlack OLED touchscreen. There’s also support for 1080/60p video recording, and up to 10fps full-resolution continuous shooting of stills. A speedy BIONZ processor is good for super-fast focussing, Sony reckons, as well as handling intelligent selection of which of the 36 difference scene modes is most suitable. That happens in just 1/30th of a second, Sony claims, with the TX200V automatically shooting two frames back-to-back in low-light or otherwise troublesome conditions, using difference settings for each, so that you can pick your favorite later. Automatic background defocus, optical image stabilization and face detection, as well as a fl

Motorola is taking on Google’s Galaxy Nexus at its own game, courting Android coders with a Developer Edition variant of its own RAZR smartphone. The RAZR XT910 Developer Edition is functionally identical to the existing GSM RAZR, but will come supplied with an unlocked bootloader so as to make installing unofficial firmware builds possible. However, in return, Motorola will withhold the warranty, so if users brick their phone they’re on their own. Still, the device is likely to be popular among developers nonetheless, tempted by the RAZR’s slimline body, dual-core processor and big screen. The consumer version of the handset comes tightly locked-down against third-party ROMs, however, something Motorola says is necessary in order to “continue meeting our carrier and regulatory obligations.” According to “the needs being expressed by our developer community” Motorola reckons, an unlocked variant of the RAZR is the most in-demand device around. The phone will go up against Google’s “off

Data stored on seized file-sharing site MegaUpload could be deleted from as early as Thursday this week, Federal prosecutors in the US have confirmed, after the company’s frozen assets stopped paying for the site’s hosting. MegaUpload’s attorney, Ira Rothken, has warned that the site has no way of continuing to maintain the data of around 50m users, The Guardian reports, while a US government letter regarding the case confirmed that data expected to be cited during the prosecution of Kim Dotcom, MegaUpload’s CEO, and his team was merely copied from the servers rather than the computers themselves being among the grabbed assets. Since the search warrant has now expired, prosecutors confirm, the government can no longer access the MegaUpload files so as to secure copies for legitimate users. Instead, it’s down to hosting companies Carpathia Hosting and Cogent Communications Group to decide what to do, with one or both of the firms being free to delete content from February 2 2012. Rothke

This week I will be embarking on a journey which includes me giving up the Android smartphones I’ve been using essentially exclusively over the past several years and picking up an iPhone 4S. Apple’s own smartphone hero is the most well-known smartphone hardware/software combination on Earth, and since it is my job to bring you, the readers, a well-rounded set of coverage on the gadget and technology world, the opportunity to work with the newest version, iPhone 4S, was one I could not pass up. This whole week will be filled with accounts of what it means to not only switch to iOS, but what it means to use the one device with the biggest global following on the planet. It’s not my job to promote this device, as it’s certainly doing well enough on it’s own at this point, but I’m not going to trash it where it doesn’t deserve to be trashed, either. Before I made this switch this weekend, I’d been using the Galaxy Nexus, that being the Samsung-made hero device for Google featuring the new

I’m often asked by friends if they should buy an Apple TV. They usually head to the Apple Store to buy a new iPad or iPhone, and while there, they come across Apple’s little set-top box. For just $99, it seems like a bargain. And so, they ask me if they should plunk down the cash to buy one. The first question I ask when I field the question is, “do you own an Xbox 360?” Time and again, if they say yes, I tell them to skip the Apple TV. If they tell me that they don’t have an Xbox, I’ll tell them that they should buy one if they want to be entertained. Only if they tell me that they have no interest in gaming or don’t want to spend the extra cash to buy the Xbox will I tell them to get their hands on the Apple TV. Now, I’m sure that there are many Apple fans out there that are appalled by that advice. Those folks use their Apple TVs each and every day, and they’re generally quite pleased with the experience. However, the more objective among us might quickly determine that when it come

Whenever there’s a new MLB The Show game, PS3-toting baseball fans are excited. They can’t wait to get their hands on the latest roster, the always-improved graphics and control system, and the surprisingly fluid voice-over commentary. But this year, there’s another reason to be interested in the new entry, and it has to do with the fact that the game is due out on two systems. Aaron Luke, a designer on the game, has confirmed that users will be able to save their games to the cloud. This includes Franchise, Road to the Show, and Season modes. This means users can pick up where they left off at a friend’s house, and they won’t lose any data if their PS3 hard drive happens to malfunction. That’s a pretty neat and handy feature. There’s another interesting part of this feature, though. MLB 12 The Show is also coming out on PlayStation Vita, and save data will be transferrable between the two systems. So Road the Show mode will actually be playable, well, on the road. The MLB “The Show” f

How do you solve a crime in 30 minutes or less? All you need is a cop who knows his tech. Police Officer Robert Garland was able to successfully track down an iPhone thief and return the device to its rightful owner thanks to his quick thinking and his knowledge of the app “Find My iPhone.” It all went down yesterday in New York City. It happened at around 7:00 PM. A cashier at luxury clothing and accessories store Tuci Italia was taking a break when a man walked into the store and pointed a gun at her. Presumably hoping to make as quick a getaway as possible, he demanded she hand over her iPhone which was in plain sight. The cashier rushed outside, and as fate would have it Officer Garland, an Apple enthusiast, was right there. Garland quickly opened his Find My iPhone app, punched in the victim’s Apple ID, and instantly pinpointed the suspect about 10 blocks away. He and his partner hopped into their cruiser and continued to follow the spot on the app until it stopped near a local su

If you thought that signing up for the premium Call of Duty Elite service on your PS3 would get you access to DLC the same time as your Xbox 360 counterparts, well, Activision has no sympathy for you. The publisher says it never made any claims to that effect, and says anyone who thought that was the case “convinced themselves that it would happen because they wanted it to happen.” Activision has a very well-known, iron-clad contract with Microsoft that guarantees Call of Duty add-on content will be released first on the Xbox 360, and then trickle down to other platforms later. Microsoft paid Activision a whole bunch of money for this privilege. But then Activision launched a service called Call of Duty Elite, which gives gamers exclusive access to special in-game events, content, and more. One of the biggest selling points is that Elite members are the very first to access new DLC packs – but only on Xbox 360. That is exactly what happened this week, when Modern Warfare 3′s first DLC

It was perhaps one of the biggest hopes in the advancement of robot-assisted medical surgery, but expectations have been too high, according to a new report from the research journal Urology. We’re talking about surgery for prostate removal, for those afflicted with prostate cancer. The study shows outcomes of the robotic procedure are not that different than those done by human hands. It’s a fascinating thing to think about. Every day, doctors get in the operating room and instead of sitting at the patient’s side, he is at a computer console, operating the controls of robotic machinery that performs the delicate operation. Ever since the first successful surgery of its kind was performed several years ago, there were all kinds of hopes that patients would have extremely limited recovery time and a quicker return to their sex life. Duke University Medical Center prostate surgeon Judd W. Moul, however, says that has not been the case. Moul, who led the Urology study, said patients who h

The cheaper, Wi-Fi-only version of Motorola’s latest and greatest Xyboard tablet has begun shipping. Pre-orders for the units are now being fulfilled, and the product pages on Verizon’s website now show them as being available to purchase. The new products, which were originally scheduled for a January 18 launch, are geared at consumers who want a high-end tablet but don’t care about being able to take it online any time they want. What could have potentially been one of the best moves for the Xyboard is that its official name is the Droid Xyboard. Unfortunately, most people just end up dropping the Droid moniker, and secondly that moniker has lost a lot of its value. Motorola should have captured that brand momentum with its first tablet, the Xoom. It isn’t making nearly as big a splash now. Nevertheless, the availability of cheaper Xyboards should spark some new interest in the company’s second big attempt to cash in on the tablet war. There are four versions of the device, broken u

The Optimus 3D phone didn’t gain a huge amount of traction but it did set an important milestone as a flagship glasses-free 3D handset. And LG is poised to push that legacy forward with a phone we knew now only by its code-name, the CX2. Now, according to a new report, it looks like the shelf name might be the 3D Max. This would make it the first smartphone with the term “3D” at the front of its name. The insider information comes from Israeli website GSM-Israel, which has a solid track record of leaking details that are later proven true. Based on earlier information we’ve seen, the phone will have a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor, a 4.3-inch display, and a built-in 3D camera for still shots and video. Of course, the tough part of selling a 3D phone right now is the lack of content. Sprint put out an aggressive campaign for its Evo 3D device that encouraged users to create their own content with the built-in 3D camera. Third-party app makers have been less enthusiastic, but perhaps at ne

Despite its delicious name, Ice Cream Sandwich has left some users feeling sour. The latest example is Asus’s ambitious Transformer Prime tablet, which recently upgraded to the latest and greatest version of Android. The only problem is handfuls of users started complaining that after the update, the device started locking up and requiring a manual reset. The Transformer Prime is Asus’s big attempt to gain momentum in the tablet race, and its major selling point is the ability to turn into what is essentially a fully functional laptop. It’s also making waves as the first tablet to get the ICS nod, but of course there are always risks to being the guinea pig. Asus has acknowledged that a problem exists, and the company’s technical marketing manager Gary Key was quoted as saying that the team “hope[s] to have a fix available in early February.” This isn’t the first time we’ve seen ICS upgrades present a problem. The Nexus S stopped its update process, and although no one confirmed there

If you were waiting for the day when you could watch Family Guy on your iPad, pop Indiana Jones into your DVD player, and wait for the latest Call of Duty game to appear in your mailbox, all while only logging into one online account, your dreams have been quashed. Specifically, the Call of Duty part. Video streaming giant Netflix has dismissed its plans to add video game titles to its mail-order rental library. The announcement came during this week’s quarterly earnings conference call. The call had an ultimately positive vibe to it, as Netflix managed to gain back 600,000 of the 800,000 subscribers it lost in the previous quarter. The quarter in question was the first time the online company saw a dip in its user base. The last time Netflix entertained the idea of adding video games to its mix was in October, when CEO Reed Hastings was quoted as saying there were still internal discussions about its viability. But the truth is Gamefly has a very strong stranglehold on that market, an

Yahoo! Meme, Yahoo! Mim, Yahoo! AppSpot, Yahoo! Deals, Yahoo! Shopping, and Yahoo! Sketch-a-Search have all been removed from Apple’s App Store. And if you’re like most people, you never even looked at these apps in the first place. That’s exactly the point. It’s part of Yahoo’s strategy to rebuild its mobile presence from the ground up. That list only refers to apps that were available for the iPhone and iPad. The former search leader also took down a handful of apps for Android. It’s a quick glance at Yahoo’s previous “kitchen sink” strategy when it came to mobile apps, and it clearly did not work. In the rare chance you happened to download any of these apps already, it’s unclear if they will continue to work. The complete list of discontinued apps, which totals 10, is as follows: • Yahoo! Meme (iPad and iPhone) • Yahoo! Mim (iPad) • Yahoo! Answers (Android) • Yahoo! AppSpot (Android and iPhone) • Yahoo! Deals (iPhone) • Yahoo! Finance (BlackBerry) • Yahoo! Movies (Android) • Yahoo!

Yahoo! Meme, Yahoo! Mim, Yahoo! AppSpot, Yahoo! Deals, Yahoo! Shopping, and Yahoo! Sketch-a-Search have all been removed from Apple’s App Store. And if you’re like most people, you never even looked at these apps in the first place. That’s exactly the point. It’s part of Yahoo’s strategy to rebuild its mobile presence from the ground up. That list only refers to apps that were available for the iPhone and iPad. The former search leader also took down a handful of apps for Android. It’s a quick glance at Yahoo’s previous “kitchen sink” strategy when it came to mobile apps, and it clearly did not work. In the rare chance you happened to download any of these apps already, it’s unclear if they will continue to work. The complete list of discontinued apps, which totals 10, is as follows: • Yahoo! Meme (iPad and iPhone) • Yahoo! Mim (iPad) • Yahoo! Answers (Android) • Yahoo! AppSpot (Android and iPhone) • Yahoo! Deals (iPhone) • Yahoo! Finance (BlackBerry) • Yahoo! Movies (Android) • Yahoo!

Harvard University has teamed up with an organization called the New Enterprise Associates to create an initiative that hopes to keep great innovators in college before they run out and make millions. This, of course, is exactly what happened with Mark Zuckerberg and fellow software architect Bill Gates. The problem is all the good schools are in New England but all the dough is out on the West Coast. But no more, perhaps. The new initiative is called the Experiment Fund, and it will award amounts of $250,000 to $500,000 to as many as six start-ups in the brainy Massachusetts area that houses Hardvard and MIT, among many others. While anyone is eligible it was Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences dean Cherry Murray who co-founded the project. New Enterprise Associates’s Patrick Chung, a venture capitalist, was quoted as saying, “There has been an envy of the left coast. Now, these talented engineers don’t have to leave when they reach the boundaries of the university wh

The Galaxy S III is a device that will be popping up some time inside 2012, and today’s information leads us to believe that it will be sooner than later: a clue at Samsung’s own Global Download Center support site, no less. Here we can see inside the Mobile Device and Smart Phone categories a brand new Product Model Name: GT-I9300, a model that’s a grade above the rest. Here will find the next Samsung handset that will break down the walls previously set up by the Galaxy S II last year and the Galaxy S before that. This device is currently having its release time considered by the powers that be, this information made public last night in Samsung’s earnings call for the last quarter. Inside their talks it was said that they’d still possibly be releasing a new handset at Mobile World Congress 2012, but that they’re considering what the best course of action will be. What with all the cash they just dropped on the “Samsunged” suite of advertisements on television and soon during the Sup

The first official Chief Technology Officer of the United States, Aneesh Chopra, has resigned from his post to pursue other political ambitions. Chopra was appointed the position back in May of 2009 shortly after President Obama took office and wanted to integrate modern technology to improve government operations. Chopra’s appointment was part of Obama’s “Strategy for American Innovation” initiative, in which he hoped to examine ways that technology would spur innovations to help the government be more efficient in job creation, reducing health care costs, and protecting the homeland. During Chopra’s nearly three years as the nation’s CTO, he helped design the President’s National Wireless Initiative, developed a nationwide public safety broadband network, and established a set of Internet Policy Principles, among a “dizzying array of accomplishments.” Although the White House did not specify a reason for Chopra’s departure, the Washington Post reports that he is leaving to pursue a n

Welcome to Verizon’s most high-definition LTE device on the market right now, the Spectrum by LG, complete with a massive True HD IPS display at 4.5-inches and 720 x 1280 pixels. It’s certainly not a short device, made to fit in the palm of your adult-sized hand and weigh in at next to nothing (142g) as it shows off its fabulously bright front and powerfully backed-up interior with its dual-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon processor from Qualcomm. Is this the nicest LTE device on the market today? Hardware While LG does still have one of my favorite devices ever in the G2X released last year, this device feels a bit large for the average citizen. Certainly consider whether you need all the extra space in this gigantic four and half inch display before you go purchasing it, especially since your thumb wont be able to reach the other end of your screen without assistance of your other hand. When playing games and watching video though, this display is top of class. The camera also has us dazzled a

T-Mobile is home to more than a million iPhone users despite still being denied an official iPhone deal with Apple. These unlocked iPhones only have access to T-Mobile’s slow 2G EDGE network and that isn’t about to change, but the carrier is planning to improve customer support for these users starting January 30. According to a leaked internal document obtained by TmoNews, the carrier plans to add iPhone support that includes “common procedures, information about feature and specifications and other basic device questions.” Also, iPhone support pages will be created and integrated with current T-Mobile Community support pages. Unlocked iPhone users will benefit by being able to make just one call to reach support, while employees will have access to the support information they need to resolve issues more quickly. However, the poor 2G EDGE network experience and the lack of data plans will persist as long as iPhone hardware continues to lack support for T-Mobile’s WCDMA 1700/2100 band

Virus detection and security group Symantec has today reported that a bug by the name of Android.Counterclank has infected between 1 million and 5 million Android users as of this afternoon. This bit of software sits on a handful of easily downloadable applications available on the Android Market as of late today and each has been downloaded several hundred times at least, with some ranging in the thousands. This Android.Counterclank has the highest distribution of any malware identified inside 2012 and may well be the largest infection on Android in its short history. Symantec urges users to take a look at the list they’ve got of applications which hold the infected files on them. If you see an application that you’ve downloaded recently on the list, uninstall it and/or reboot your device entirely back to stock. The trojan in this attack is but a minor modification of what’s been know up until now as Android.Tonclank, an application which can receive commands without your knowledge an

The much anticipated Nikon D800 DSLR will be unveiled on February 7, according to NikonRumors. Details on the D800 along with a picture of the camera have been leaked in previous months, revealing a whopping 36-megapixel full-frame DLSR that manages to be slightly smaller than Nikon’s D700 while still having three times the megapixels and a larger LCD. Beyond the massive sensor resolution and full frame, the Nikon D800 also offers superior video quality, up to 1080p/30/25/24 with the option of shooting at 720p/60/30/25/24. Footage can be stored on both CF and SD cards as both slots are provided. Autofocus is expected to be identical to the D700 and D3, which means a 51-point AF with 3D Focus Tracking. The Nikon D800 will begin shipping a few weeks after it’s announced on February 7. Also gearing up for an unveiling are Nikon’s new Coolpix cameras, which will be announced on February 2. The Nikon D4 will and two new DX lenses will likely be introduced later on in February or March.