Microsoft acquires start-up id8: source

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp bought start-up id8 Group R2 Studios Inc as it looks to expand further in technology focused on the home and entertainment, a person familiar with the situation said on Wednesday.id8 Group R2 Studios was started in 2011 by Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor Blake Krikorian. It recently launched a Google Android application to allow users to control home...

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Barack Obama’s AMA is Reddit’s Top Post of 2012

Do you remember that Barack Obama AMA on Reddit this past August? The one that started with “Hi, I’m Barack Obama, President of the United States. Ask me anything.”That was Reddit’s top post of 2012 with 5,598,171 page views. Reddit compiled a list of it’s top posts of the year we just said farewell to.[More from Mashable: This Is 2012 Summed Up in One Image]The site also handed out some “best of”...

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Unreleased ‘BlackBerry X10′ QWERTY phone appears again in new photos

Title Post: Unreleased ‘BlackBerry X10′ QWERTY phone appears again in new photosRating: 100%based on 99998 ratings.5 user reviews.Author: Fluser SeoLinkThanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comm...

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Top 5 Kids Apps: Best Games

1. Bugs and BubblesAges 3-up Overall rating: 5 out of 5 stars Why we like it: Fun, fast and good for building emerging math skills, Bugs and Bubbles contains 18 leveled sorting, classification games set in Uncle Bob’s Bubble Factory. The goal is to collect stickers by harvesting bubbles, requiring kids to apply skills of counting, sorting and remembering patterns in an elegant fashion. Need to know:...

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8 Festive Christmas Tumblrs, Presented by Santa Dogs

365 Days of ChristmasImage courtesy of Flickr, nicktakespicsClick here to view this gallery.[More from Mashable: 10 Holiday Stock Photos That Make Your Christmas Look Normal]If the endless loop of Wham and Mariah Carey Christmas tunes still hasn’t put you in the holiday mood, let the Internet help.SEE ALSO: 20 Amazing Christmas Surprises[More from Mashable: Now and Then: 10 Awesome Past and Present...

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First photos of BlackBerry 10 ‘N-Series’ QWERTY smartphone leak

Title Post: First photos of BlackBerry 10 ‘N-Series’ QWERTY smartphone leakRating: 100%based on 99998 ratings.5 user reviews.Author: Fluser SeoLinkThanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comm...

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Saudi website editor could face death for apostasy-rights group

RIYADH (Reuters) – The editor of a Saudi Arabian website could be sentenced to death after a judge cited him for apostasy and moved his case to a higher court, the monitoring group Human Rights Watch said on Saturday.Raif Badawi, who started the Free Saudi Liberals website to discuss the role of religion in Saudi Arabia, was arrested in June, Human Rights Watch said.Badawi had initially been charged...

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Suicide bombers attack mobile phone firms in Nigeria

KANO, Nigeria (Reuters) – Two suicide car bombers attacked the offices of mobile phone operators India’s Airtel and South Africa’s MTN on Saturday in Nigeria’s northern city of Kano, killing themselves but no civilians, police said.Islamist sect Boko Haram has previously targeted phone firms, blowing up telephone masts and offices, saying the companies help the security forces catch its members.“The...

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Facebook tests $1 fee for messages to non-friends

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Facebook says it is testing a service that will charge users $ 1 to guarantee that messages they send to people they are not connected to arrive in users’ inboxes, rather than in an often-ignored folder called “other.”Launched in 2011, the “other” folder is where Facebook routes messages it deems less relevant. Not quite spam, these include messages from people you most likely...

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Nexus 4 ad touts Photo Sphere as the go-to app for avoiding holiday family photo headaches [video]

Title Post: Nexus 4 ad touts Photo Sphere as the go-to app for avoiding holiday family photo headaches [video]Rating: 100%based on 99998 ratings.5 user reviews.Author: Fluser SeoLinkThanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comm...

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What If Nothing or Nobody is to Blame for Lanza? Guns, Video Games, Autism or Authorities

What if there is nobody or nothing to blame for Adam Lanza‘s heinous acts? Other than Lanza, of course.What if school security and the school psychiatrist kept an eye on Lanza since his freshman year? The Wall Street Journal has a compelling narrative about the red flags addressed.What if he had a form of autism that has little or no link to violent behavior? Lanza may have had Asperger’s syndrome...

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$35 Raspberry Pi computer gets its own app store

Title Post: $35 Raspberry Pi computer gets its own app storeRating: 100%based on 99998 ratings.5 user reviews.Author: Fluser SeoLinkThanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comm...

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Facebook unveils new privacy controls

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook Inc began rolling out a variety of new privacy controls on Wednesday, the company’s latest effort to address user concerns about who can see their personal information on the world’s largest social network.New tools introduced on Wednesday will make it easier for Facebook’s members to quickly determine who can view the photos, comments and other information about...

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Valve Confirms New Game Console on Its Way

In an interview with Kotaku’s Jason Schreier at the Spike TV Video Game Awards, Valve co-founder Gabe Newell confirmed that a “living-room-friendly PC package,” designed to “compete with next-gen consoles from companies like Microsoft and Sony,” will be available for purchase starting next year.What makes a PC a PCMost of the machines Newell described, which he expected “companies” would “start selling”...

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Google Maps finally comes to iOS. Again [updated]

Apple has had quite a bumpy car ride so far with it’s mapping product. That all ends in just a couple hours, however, because late Wednesday evening Google is planning on bringing Maps back to iOS with the release of the company’s own software. AllThingsD is reporting that Google’s app will be available for download in the App Store shortly, and we’ll provide some initial thoughts on it soon after.UPDATE:...

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Pope Benedict offers blessings with his first tweet

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – After weeks of anticipation, Pope Benedict sent his first tweet on Wednesday.“Dear friends, I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter. Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from my heart.”The tweet was sent when the 85-year-old pope tapped on a touch screen at the end of his weekly general audience in the Vatican before thousands of people.(Reporting...

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Top Google executive forced off Twitter

Working at Google (GOOG) has its benefits — for one thing, the company’s reputation as an innovator is nearly unmatched — however things aren’t always as simple as they look. After making a joke on Twitter about Microsoft and Nokia’s Windows Phone partnership, Google’s senior vice president of engineering Vic Gundotra was told to stop using the micro-blogging site. Gundotra had been using the social...

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Internet governance talks in jeopardy as Arab states, Russia ally

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A landmark attempt to set global rules for overseeing the Internet threatened to fall apart on Friday as a rift pitting the United States and some Western countries against the rest of the world widened, participants in the talks said.A 12-day conference of the International Telecommunications Union, taking place in Dubai, is supposed to result in the adoption of a new international...

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Netflix says CEO’s Facebook post triggered SEC notice

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Netflix Inc said on Thursday securities regulators warned they may bring civil action against the company and its chief executive for violating public disclosure rules with a Facebook post, in a case that raises questions about how public companies communicate on social media.The high-profile Silicon Valley CEO, Reed Hastings, dismissed the contention and said he did not...

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Zynga Wants to Get into the Gambling Business

Zynga recently filed a preliminary application for a gambling license in Nevada. We’re not talking about gambling with Farmville credits, either. We’re talking cold hard cash.RELATED: Irish Olympic Athlete Accused of Betting on an OpponentGetting a gaming license is no easy task in Nevada. The paperwork that Zynga filed this week is just the beginning of a process that the company’s executives...

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