The first two official Firefox phones are here, but you¿ll likely never be able to buy either one of them. On Tuesday, Mozilla and Spanish phonemaker Geeksphone announced the first two Firefox OS developer preview handsets ¿ the Keon and the Peak.
Google Announces They Made $14.4 Billion In Revenue, $2.89 Billion Profit In Q4 2012
Google just announced its earnings for Q4 2012, and guess what? They made a ton of money. We’re shocked.
Actually, Q4 2012 was really great for Google. The company earned $14.4 billion in revenue, which is 36% better than what they did last year. While we tend to think of Google as an American company, only $5.99 billion of that revenue came from the U.S. while the rest was made in international markets.
With $1.51 billion in revenues, Motorola Mobility accounted for 11 percent of Google’s total revenue for the quarter. Even though Google made a lot of money, they only netted $2.89 billion in net income, which is still a lot, but only slightly better than the $2.71 billion they pulled in during Q4 of 2011.
To put Google’s profit in comparison, Apple netted $13.06 billion in profit for Q4 last year and is expected to shatter that mark during their financial report tomorrow. Cult of Mac will be listening to Apple’s financial earnings call tomorrow to provide a full breakdown on the latest results.
Source: Google
via Cult of Mac
AT&T bus Alltel, 780 million
AT&T today announced that it has agreed to purchase Atlantic Tele-Network’s Alltel assets for a total of $780 million. The agreement includes wireless spectrum licenses in the 700, 850, and 1900MHz bands, network assets, retail stores, and 585,000 subscribers. Alltel Wireless was purchased by Verizon Wireless in 2008. As part of the acquisition, Verizon was required by the Federal Communications Commission to divest some assets. AT&T picked up some of those assets and Atlantic Tele-Network picked up the rest. Atlantic Tele-Network continued to run those assets under the Alltel brand across portions of six states, covering some 4.6 million POPs. AT&T is now hoping the FCC will allow it to purchase those assets from Atlantic Tele-Network. The deal, which is subject to regulatory approval, is expected to close during the second half of the year.
Nexus 4 demand 10 times higher than Google expected
Ten times as many British phone fans want the Nexus 4 than Google expected. LG has once again blamed Google for stock issues with the perenially sold-out smash-hit Android phone, saying the Big G had no idea of the potential demand. Speaking to Challenges, LG France boss Cathy Robin pointed the finger at Google. LG says it simply built as many phones as Google asked for, a number based on the sales of previous Nexus phones, such as the Nexus S. It turns out that Google severely misunderestimated how many people would actually buy the phone. Fair enough: who woulda thunk that a quad-core smart phone with the latest Jelly Bean software and a high-definition screen costing £240 would be super-popular? Who could have seen that coming? You’d have to be some kind of visionary or something. It’s not just here in Blighty that the new Nexus has struck a chord. As it turns out, ten times as many phone fans bought the Nexus 4 as anticipated in both Britain and Germany. LG says it takes about six weeks to increase the frequency of deliveries. Happily, from mid-February, LG will ramp up production of the Nexus 4. Finally! The Nexus 4 went on sale at the end of last year — for about an hour. Since then it’s been sold out at Google Play almost continually, barring the odd day here and there. If you’re not one of the lucky few who managed to get in fast and bag a phone, the only way to get hold of the Nexus 4 is to get it on a contract from a phone network — which costs a heck of a lot more than £240, in the long term. But which is better: an expensive real phone, or a cheap hypothetical phone? Virgin Media announced this week it’s adding the Nexus 4 to its line-up. Virgin joins O2 and Three in selling the phone. Should Google have seen the demand coming http://crave.cnet.co.uk/mobiles/nexus-4-demand-10-times-higher-than-google-expected-50010190/
Kim Dotcom’s Mega Claims 1 Million Users Within 24 Hours
Kim Dotcom’s new “Mega” cloud service appears to be a hit. According to Dotcom over 1 million have signed up for their free 50 gigabytes of storage. Although that is about 1% of the Dropbox user base, it’s not a bad start. From the article: “Mega quickly jumped up to around 100,000 users within an hour or so of the site’s official launch. A few hours after that, Mega had ballooned up to approximately a quarter of a million users. Demand was great enough to knock Mega offline for a number of users attempting to either connect up or sign up for new accounts, and Mega’s availability remains spotty as of this articles’ writing.”
Bill Gates says he has no more personal use for money
Bill Gates is, without a doubt, a very wealthy man. The co-founder and Chairman of Microsoft is currently the richest man in the US and the second richest man in the world, with an approximate net worth of $63.4 billion. However, in a new interview Gates says that all that money doesn’t mean much to him on a personal level.
In a chat with the Telegraph website, Gates says bluntly:
I’m certainly well taken care of in terms of food and clothes. Money has no utility to me beyond a certain point. Its utility is entirely in building an organization and getting the resources out to the poorest in the world.
That organization is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has used its resources to help fund efforts to stop deadly diseases in third world countries along with efforts to improve education in the US. So far, the group has given out a whopping $28 billion. Gates says that 95 percent of his wealth will go towards the foundation and that the money will all be spent within 20 years of his and his wife’ death.
Gates says there is no specific religious reason for wanting to help others with his vast wealth, saying, “… it’s about human dignity and equality. The golden rule that all lives have equal value and we should treat people as we would like to be treated.”
Moving from iOS to Android: your guide
S omeday, you’ll look back and tell the grandkids about it. The happiest day of your life. The day everything started to make sense in the world. You were happy. You felt alive and grounded for the first time… maybe ever. Life was worth experiencing, and Sunday mornings seemed surreal.
No, not marriage or kids… not even those pesky grandkids. I’m talking about the day you switched from an iPhone to Android! That day will live in infamy for the rest of your life. You will look back on it with reverence and delight as you gaze off into the distance at the dinner table. Everyone will say “oh, there you go again… dreaming about Android.”
All joking aside (for now), you’ve made a big change in life and it’s time to get you up and going. This article will serve as your reference point to get set-up, answer questions, and dispel myths. Before we go further, your first step will be to sign up for a Gmail account (if you haven’t already). It all starts from there.
Read more at:
http://www.androidauthority.com/moving-from-ios-android-guide-146807/?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=t.co
How do I disable Java in my web browser?
How do I disable Java in my web browser?
This article applies to:
- Platform(s): Solaris SPARC, Solaris x86, Red Hat Linux, SUSE Linux, Oracle Enterprise Linux, Windows 8, Windows 7, Vista, Windows 2008 Server, Macintosh OS X
- Browser(s): Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari
- Java version(s): 7.0, 7u10+
Starting with Java Version 7 Update 10, a new security feature has been added to Java. Some web pages may include content or apps that use the Java plug-in, and these can now be disabled using a single option in the Java Control Panel.
Disabling Java through the Java Control Panel will disable Java in all browsers.
Find the Java Control Panel
Windows XP
- Click on the Start button and then click on the Control Panel option.
- Double click on the Java icon to open the Java Control Panel.
Windows 7, Vista
- Click on the Start button and then click on the Control Panel option.
- In the Control Panel Search enter Java Control Panel.
- Click on the Java icon to open the Java Control Panel.
Windows 8
Use search to find the Control Panel
- Press Windows logo key + W to open the Search charm to search settings
OR
Drag the Mouse pointer to the bottom-right corner of the screen, then click on the Searchicon. - In the search box enter Java Control Panel
- Click on Java icon to open the Java Control Panel.
Disable Java through the Java Control Panel
- In the Java Control Panel, click on the Security tab.
- Deselect the check box for Enable Java content in the browser. This will disable the Java plug-in in the browser.
- Click Apply. When the Windows User Account Control (UAC) dialog appears, allow permissions to make the changes.
- Click OK in the Java Plug-in confirmation window.
- Restart the browser for changes to take effect.
RELATED INFORMATION
Disable the Java content in the particular browser
Internet Explorer
The only way to completely disable Java in Internet Explorer (IE) is to disable Java through the Java Control Panel as noted above.
Chrome
- Click on the Chrome menu, and then select Settings.
- At the bottom of Settings window, click Show advanced settings
- Scroll down to the Privacy section and click on Content Settings.
- In the Content Settings panel, scroll down to the Plug-ins section.
- Under the Plug-ins section, click Disable individual plug-ins.
- In the Plugins panel, scroll to the Java section. Click Disable to disable the Java Plug-in.
- Close and restart the browser to enable the changes.
Note: Alternatively, you can access the Plug-ins settings by typing about:plugins in the browser address bar.
Firefox
- Click on the Firefox tab and then select Add-ons
- In the Add-ons Manager window, select Plugins
- Click Java (TM) Platform plugin to select it
- Click Disable (if the button displays Enable then Java is already disabled)
Safari
- Choose Safari Preferences
- Choose the Security option
- Deselect Enable Java
- Close Safari Preferences window
New Java vulnerability is being exploited in the wild, disabling Java is currently your only option
A new Java 0-day vulnerability has been discovered, and is already being exploited in the wild. Currently, disabling the plugin is the only way to protect your computer.
Update on December 11: Oracle’s Java vulnerability left open since October 2012 ‘fix’, now being used to push ransomware
The US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), which falls under the National Cyber Security Division of the Department of Homeland Security, has issued the following vulnerability note:
Overview – Java 7 Update 10 and earlier contain an unspecified vulnerability that can allow a remote, unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code on a vulnerable system.
Description – Java 7 Update 10 and earlier contain an unspecified remote-code-execution vulnerability. This vulnerability is being attacked in the wild, and is reported to be incorporated into exploit kits.
Impact – By convincing a user to visit a specially crafted HTML document, a remote attacker may be able to execute arbitrary code on a vulnerable system.
It appears this flaw was first stumbled upon by a French researcher who goes by the name Kafeine. In a post on his Malware Don’t Need Coffee website, the researcher claimed that the latest version, Java 7 Update 10, was being exploited on a site that receives “hundreds of thousands of hits daily” and concluded that “this could be mayhem.”
More importantly, Kafeine noted the two most popular Web threat tools used by hackers to distribute malware, the BlackHole Exploit Kit and the Cool Exploit Kit, already have this latest Java exploit. BitDefenderconfirmed the alleged addition of the exploit into Cool while security expert Brian Krebs confirmed the BlackHole part, as well as noted its addition into Nuclear Pack:
The curator of Blackhole, a miscreant who uses the nickname “Paunch,” announced yesterday on several Underweb forums that the Java zero-day was a “New Year’s Gift,” to customers who use his exploit kit. Paunch bragged that his was the first to include the powerful offensive weapon, but shortly afterwards the same announcement was made by the maker and seller of Nuclear Pack.
This actual vulnerability was later confirmed by security firm AlienVault Labs. With Kafeine’s help, the company reproduced the exploit on a new, fully-patched installation of Java, and used a malicious Java applet to remotely execute the Calculator application on Windows XP:
We recommend that regardless of what browser and operating system you’re using, you should uninstall Java if you don’t need it. If you do need it, use a separate browser when Java is required, and make sure to disable Java in your default browser.
We have contacted Oracle about this issue. We will update you if we hear back.
Update on December 11: Oracle’s Java vulnerability left open since October 2012 ‘fix’, now being used to push ransomware
See also – Security companies are recommending you disable Java, or just uninstall it and Mozilla joins the chorus, tells Firefox users to disable Java due to security hole
Windows Phone loses access to Google Maps
On Friday, some WIndows Phone 8 users discovered that you can no longer access the Google Maps website via devices running Windows Phone 7 or 8. While on the surface it seems like Google is deliberately crippling its own services on a competing mobile operating system, there’s much more to the story than meets the eye.
The mobile version of Google Maps never officially supported Windows Phone, because the version of IE that comes with it doesn’t have the WebKit support that Maps needs to work properly. That doesn’t mean that Google isn’t intentionally blocking Maps on phones that run Microsoft’s OS, but it’s more likely that the company fixed a bug that allowed these unsupported devices access in the first place.
Since Google doesn’t seem too keen on developing apps for Windows Phone—the company has a search app that hasn’t been updated in over a year—and with the search giant reportedly preventing Microsoft from building a proper YouTube app, it’s unlikely that this development will make Google more popular with either Microsoft or the Windows Phone users out there who use its services.
Google may be pushing for people to buy into using devices that run Android, but if the company can make its offerings work on iOS then it can definitely do the same for Windows Phone.
To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
via PCWorld http://www.pcworld.com/article/2023757/windows-phone-loses-access-to-google-maps.html
