Tag Archives: australia

Google and Bing have a little disagreement about the Xbox One

If you ask Bing about the coming Xbox One console, it has a pretty simple take. Google’s is a bit more complex. What’s interesting, or fun, is that they are diametrically opposed.

Fresh screenshots that I took myself between 4:55 and 5:03 PST today:

And Google:

Well then.

Intrigue? Horror? Naw. Check this out:

And:

Bing simply processes the query “the Xbox One is” very differently than “Xbox One is,” and Google doesn’t appear to. It makes for a funny Facebook-shareable. And Reddit will probably have a field day, but there isn’t much more here than a cheap laugh.

Which we are not above. To make it more fair, Bing doesn’t appear to think much of me either:

Top Image Credit: BTO

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Google and Bing have a little disagreement about the Xbox One

Google invokes first amendment rights as it requests permission to disclose FISA order figures

Google has filed a petition with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court citing its first amendment rights as it asks for permission to disclose controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) requests.

The company revealed in a Google+ post that it is seeking to separate out federal criminal requests from those related to national security:

We have long pushed for transparency so users can better understand the extent to which governments request their data—and Google was the first company to release numbers for National Security Letters. However, greater transparency is needed, so today we have petitioned the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to allow us to publish aggregate numbers of national security requests, including FISA disclosures, separately. Lumping national security requests together with criminal requests—as some companies have been permitted to do—would be a backward step for our users.

The Washington Post obtained a copy of Google’s motion, which referred to the first amendment, which protects freedom of speech, and the high value that the company places on transparency.

According to the Post, Google is specifically asking to reveal the number of national security requests it receives and how many user accounts are affected.

Developing. Please refresh for updates.

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Google invokes first amendment rights as it requests permission to disclose FISA order figures

Microsoft’s Xbox Facebook page has turned into an epic ASCII art flame war

Microsoft’s efforts to promote the Xbox One on Facebook have devolved into an old-fashioned ASCII art flame war.

Xbox One and PlayStation 4 faced off last week at E3, and by most accounts, the Xbox took a bruising. Massively unpopular policies regarding used games and persistent Internet connections have left Microsoft with a significant public relations problem on its hands.

After Microsoft changed the cover photo on its Xbox Facebook page on Monday, Sony fans took to the comment thread to post hundreds of ASCII Sony logos, middle fingers and face palms. Microsoft loyalists have responded with the occasional thumbs up, but they appear to be vastly outnumbered. The thread has attracted over 14,500 comments.

Microsoft is taking it all in stride. The company has posted several pieces of ASCII art of its own, dedicating them to all of its “ASCII loving Facebook fans and followers”:

Header image credit: Wavebreak Media

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Microsoft’s Xbox Facebook page has turned into an epic ASCII art flame war

Seal – Seal kann nach Sieg bei „The Voice“ zu seinen Kindern zurück

Doppeltes Glück für Seal: Der Sänger und Juror von „The Voice Australia“ konnte Am Montag den Sieg seines Schützlings bejubeln. Doch damit nicht genug – denn nun hat der Ex von Heidi Klum wieder mehr Zeit für seine Kinder.

Mit einem Erfolg endete für Seal (50,

„Soul 2“

) die zweite Staffel der Casting-Show „The Voice Australia“. Der Sänger, der neben Good-Charlotte-Sänger Joel Madden (34,

„Cardiology“

), Country-Sternchen Delta Goodrem (28,

„Child of the Universe“

) und Latino-Star Ricky Martin (41,

„Life“

) in der Jury saß, führte seinen Kandidaten Harrison Craig zum Sieg. Allerdings hatte der Job für Seal auch einen gravierenden Nachteil: Er hatte keinen Kontakt zu seinen vier Kindern.

Einer der besten Hits von Seal: „Kiss From A Rose“ gibt´s hier

Vermutlich konnte der Sänger durch die Arbeit an der Sendung den Trennungsschmerz von Supermodel Heidi Klum (40), die regelmäßig mit ihrem neuen Freund Martin Kirsten in der Boulevardpresse zu sehen ist, leichter verarbeiten. Allerdings lagen auch 12.000 Kilometer zwischen dem 50-Jährigen in Sydney und seinen Kindern Leni (8), Henry (7), Johan (6) und Lou (3) in Los Angeles.

Nachdem diese ihren Vater in Australien vergangene Woche besucht hatten, öffnete sich Seal den Fans via Twitter und verriet den Followern seinen Gemütszustand: „Ich war jetzt elf Wochen von meinen Kindern getrennt. Und als ich sagte ´Ich kann nicht erwarten, nach Hause zu kommen´ meinte ich, dass ich es vermisse, mit ihnen zu Hause zu sein“. Nach dem Sieg seines Schützlings bei „The Voice“ kann Seal nun endlich nach Hause zurückkehren.

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Seal – Seal kann nach Sieg bei „The Voice“ zu seinen Kindern zurück

World Cup drama: Iran reach 2014 finals

Iran’s players celebrate after beating South Korea 1-0 to reach the 2014 World Cup.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Iran reach the 2014 World Cup with 1-0 win over South Korea
South Korea also qualify for Brazil as runners-up in Group A but coach Choi steps down
Australia qualifies for a third consecutive World Cup
Jordan will play Uzbekistan in a playoff

(CNN) — Iran, South Korea and Australia all booked a place in next year’s FIFA World Cup following a dramatic final round of matches in the Asian qualifying competition.

A second-half goal from Reza Ghoochannejhad was enough for Iran to beat South Korea 1-0 in Ulsan, meaning Carlos Queiroz’s team finished top of Group A.

Victory saw Iran reach football’s premier competition for the fourth time in its history, having previously played in the first round of the 1978, 1998 and 2006 tournaments.

Read: Tahiti’s historic defeat to Nigeria

CNN correspondent Shirzad Bozorgmehr said Iranians took to the streets across their country to celebrate.

Why so few South Asian footballers?

World Sport Presents: Racism in Football

Will Brazil be ready for the World Cup?

Why Brazilians are staging protests

He said that cars in the capital Tehran were draped in the Iranian flag and blowing their horns as their passengers shouted “Iran, Iran.”

“This is the second national celebration in Iran in the last five days,” said Bozorgmehr.

“Following the landslide victory of Dr. Hassan Rohani last Friday in the presidential elections, huge crowds poured into the streets of Tehran and other cities to publicly celebrate Dr Rohani’s election victory.”

In his first press conference on Monday, Rohani told reporters he planned to overhaul sports in a country where soccer is the most popular game.

Despite defeat, South Korea still clinched the second automatic qualification spot as Uzbekistan fell agonizingly short against Qatar, winning 5-1 but finishing third in Group A on goal difference alone.

After the match, South Korea coach Choi Kang-Hee revealed that he would be stepping down from his post – a surprise move at first glance, although Choi did say he would only take charge for the qualifiers when appointed in December 2011.

Choi had been involved in an acrimonious war of words with Iran coach Carlos Quieroz ahead of the game and home fans hurled plastic water bottles and other items onto the pitch after taking offense at a gesture directed towards Choi by the Portuguese after the match.

South Korea’s loss meant Uzbekistan would qualify for the finals for the first time if it beat Qatar by six goals.

But Uzbekistan fell behind in Tashkent when Abdulqadir Ilyas gave the 2022 World Cup hosts a shock first-half lead.

World Sport Presents: Racism in Football

The home side bounced back in the second half, firing in five goals without reply, but the 5-1 final score was not enough to see Uzbekistan leapfrog South Korea.

Uzbekistan will now play the third-place team in Group B – Jordan – over two legs.

In Wednesday’s final Asian qualifier, Jordan took the third place in Group B when beating Oman 1-0 in Amman – with Ahmad Ibrahim scoring a vital goal just before the hour.

The result enabled the hosts to leapfrog their opponents in the group, with Jordan – seeking a maiden World Cup qualification – having trailed the Omanis by two points ahead of kickoff.

The winner of the Uzbekistan-Jordan playoff will advance to a tie with the fifth-place team from the South American competition, with the winner qualifying for next year’s finals in Brazil.

A late header from substitute Joshua Kennedy gave Australia a 1-0 win over Iraq and sent the Socceroos to Brazil.

Australia knew a win would be enough to qualify for a third consecutive World Cup, but anything less than three points would give Oman the chance to clinch an automatic qualification spot.

With the score 0-0 at a rain-soaked ANZ Stadium, coach Holger Osiek drew the ire of the crowd by replacing star player Tim Cahill with Kennedy after 78 minutes.

But Kennedy justified Osiek’s bold decision by rising to meet Marc Bresciano’s right-wing cross, beating Iraq goalkeeper Noor Sabri with a well-placed finish.

Australia finished the Asian qualifying campaign second in Group B behind Japan.

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Nokia surges 11% after Huawei says it is ‘open’ to purchasing the Finnish company

Zoom. Today, in an interview with the Financial Times, Huawei’s Richard Yu stated that his company is “open-minded” to purchasing Nokia. The direct quote: “We are considering these sorts of acquisitions; maybe the combination has some synergies but depends on the willingness of Nokia. We are open-minded.”

The Financial Times caught up with Yu ahead of the launch event for the Ascend P6 device in London.

Yu went on to discuss Windows Phone, a key platform for Nokia, as having “very small market share.” He also said that the fact that the platform requires “a licence fee” is “not good.” Android, he stated, is free. That is only partially true. Most Android OEMs pay Microsoft fees for using Google’s software, as the Redmond-based firm alleges that the rival platform infringes on its intellectual property.

Nokia’s stock has retracted slightly from its 11% pop, but the company has certainly had a good day. Those gains could evaporate if Nokia indicates it is not interested in selling.

Microsoft would likely be opposed to any such sale, given that if Nokia were to leave the Windows Phone fold, the OEM that ships around 80% of the devices that run its mobile platform would be abdicating its role; Microsoft would be hard-pressed -to replace them.

If Huawei buys Nokia and pulls out from Windows Phone, the platform is over. Then again, what would it be buying but the firm’s Windows Phone efforts?

Top Image Credit: Vernon Chan

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Nokia surges 11% after Huawei says it is ‘open’ to purchasing the Finnish company

Udemy’s online learning marketplace has 8k courses, 800k students, and launches new ‘Summer’ grant

Online learning marketplace Udemy today revealed new statistics concerning the usage of its service. It shared that it now has more than 8,000 courses being taught to 800,000 students. Udemy says that its instructor acquisition growth rate has grown 365 percent and that now, some courses have become so popular that the top ten instructors have earned combined course revenue of more than $5 million.

In an effort to increase the number of instructors, and hopefully create new courses, Udemy is launching its “Summer of Teaching” grant program whereby instructors could win $5,000 and 100 percent of their course revenues for life.

One of the issues with services like Udemy, Udacity, Coursera, Khan Academy, and, of course, the TNW Academy, is that these services are heavily reliant on having instructors be constant users of the service. Because without them, existing courses would soon grow stale and the only way fresh content is created is through new instructors. So Udemy is trying something new to improve its user acquisition and this new grant program comes six months after it launched its Teach2013 initiative.

According to Udemy, most instructors will spend two to four weeks working on their initial courses while also trying to balance their home and professional lives. Courses can either be free or paid — if it’s the latter, instructors will receive 70 percent of the revenue.

Interestingly, the company’s growth is quite fascinating — in January, it shared that its top 10 instructors received $1.6 million in course sales with more than 5,000 courses on the platform. In the six months after that, revenues grew more than 312 percent and courses increase 160 percent. Udemy says that its instructor community growth is a reflection of the “increasing interest in teaching online as well as significant advancements in technology associated with course creation, video, and publishing.”

With the “Summer of Teaching” grant, potential instructors have until August 31, 2013 to sign up for a chance to win. The incentive to create this initiative comes from something Dr. Audrey Heinesen, Ed.D., Udemy’s Director of Teaching and Learning, said to us:

Udemy has a great return-on-investment for instructors, financially speaking, particularly as compared with traditional adult learning environments. When you consider the number of hours that go into a typical semester-long, in-person course, you’ll find many non-tenured instructors earn little more than minimum wage.

The $5,000 is an incentive to appeal to instructors to enroll hoping that they’ll see value in gaining more both financially and professionally from teaching online — the 100 percent commission is just the cherry on the cake.

While this move is certainly beneficial to instructors, it will certainly attract more people to sign up. However, while that’s good for Udemy, one of the things it will surely have to worry about is maintaining the quality of its courses. Certainly, people will be attracted by the desire to receive $5,000. What’s more, is understanding the motivation behind the move — has the company received so much demand that there are not enough courses that appeal to students?

Udemy’s “Summer of Teaching” grant is not replacing its Teach2013 initiative, which, at last count, signed up 15,000 new instructors, including Dan Rather and George Lucas.

Photo credit: Thinkstock

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Udemy’s online learning marketplace has 8k courses, 800k students, and launches new ‘Summer’ grant

Australian Style: Nicole Kidman, Naomi Watts And Other Aussies We Can Learn From (PHOTOS)

Although Australians are known for their Vegemite, unbeatable surfing conditions and adorable dingoes, they are also known for their great fashion sense. It seems as though the folks Down Under have it going on in the style department, too. Whether they’re wearing a classic suit or an elaborate Dior gown, they clearly know what’s up. So much so, in fact, that sometimes if feels as though they are in on a few beauty and style secrets that we Americans aren’t privy to. (We’re huge fans of the Aussie original Lucas Papaw Ointment.) How do they consistently look great, without looking like they’re trying to hard?

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Australian Style: Nicole Kidman, Naomi Watts And Other Aussies We Can Learn From (PHOTOS)

Obvious Co.-backed habit forming app Lift comes from iPhone to Web and mobile devices with beautiful responsive design

Today the habit forming app Lift is launching a new Web app that works across desktops and devices like Android and Windows phones. The app is designed to compliment the current version for iOS that launched in late 2012.

The Web edition of the app appears heavily inspired by mobile devices like the iPad, and it scales across multiple platforms with a responsive design. There’s near feature parity between the iOS app and the Web app, though a new statistics section has been added to the web to give you deeper and longer access to personal statistics and visualization.

Lift, if you’re unfamiliar, is an app that allows you to pick from predefined personal goals that you would like to transmute into habits, or create your own specific tasks that you’d like to do more of. It does this by encouraging you to check off each item that you do daily, making sure you begin building a regular rhythm of these checkins. As you go along, you’re rewarded with crisp, beautiful graphs and feedback in the form of streaks and encouragement from other users.

Lift was co-founded by Tony Stubblebine of Crowdvine and Jon Crosby of Path, in partnership with Obvious Co., a project of Twitter co-founders Biz Stone, Evan Williams and Jason Goldman. Lift received Series A funding led by Bijan Sabet at Spark Capital, who also joined their board. Other investors in the round include SV Angel, Adam Ludwin from RRE, as well as GTD author David Allen, speaker Tony Robbins and Emmy winning director Greg Yaitanes. Tim Ferriss, Narendra Rocherolle of Smile and Jeremy LaTrasse of MessageBus participated in the seed round along with Obvious.

Screen Shot 2013 06 17 at 4.45.00 PM 520x269 Obvious Co. backed habit forming app Lift comes from iPhone to Web and mobile devices with beautiful responsive design

Screen Shot 2013 06 17 at 4.45.11 PM 520x268 Obvious Co. backed habit forming app Lift comes from iPhone to Web and mobile devices with beautiful responsive design

Screen Shot 2013 06 17 at 5.23.02 PM 520x316 Obvious Co. backed habit forming app Lift comes from iPhone to Web and mobile devices with beautiful responsive design

Screen Shot 2013 06 17 at 5.25.12 PM 520x496 Obvious Co. backed habit forming app Lift comes from iPhone to Web and mobile devices with beautiful responsive design

Screen Shot 2013 06 17 at 5.26.25 PM 520x436 Obvious Co. backed habit forming app Lift comes from iPhone to Web and mobile devices with beautiful responsive design

I’ve been playing with the Web version a bit and it’s pretty killer. There’s a lot to like here for a Lift user and the design brings not only the features of the iPhone app, but as much of the feel can be possible as well. Actions taken are nice and crisp, there is quick positive feedback in both buttons and page response times. You still get your nice graph and checkin buttons, as well as more expansive sections for commentary.

The social and interaction sections of Lift are now accessible to anyone, on any platform, which means that there should be more cross pollination between groups of users. This includes a few of the ‘formalized’ groups surrounding experts like Tim Ferriss, sites like Foodist and Zenhabits and more, as well as groups of friends and teams going after the same goals. The positive reinforcement gained when people are sharing tips and more in the comments of your goals or checkins is all part of the ‘positive feedback’ loop that Lift is trying to create.

And bringing the app to the Web proper allows people to sit down and write lengthier posts without having to type them out on the iPhone’s keyboard. This could encourage more sharing and socializing in addition to the regular ‘check in’ catchiness of the service.

The addition of mobile web editions also takes care of bringing Lift to every other platform outside of the iPhone in one swoop. Though an Android version of Lift is still in the works, developing for the mobile web hits a bunch of targets at once, so it was likely the best way to go. And the responsive design, I’m happy to report, looks great across a resized web browser or a phone browser.

The design of the Web experience owes a lot to the split pane standard set by the iPad and reflected by designs of other sites like Facebook and Pinterest. But that doesn’t make it any less effective. It’s done well and with restraint, and manages to translate the spirit of the iPhone app better than many other mobile web versions. This is how to do it right.

And there are some ‘bonus’ features for the Web in the form of a deeper tracking of habits across years. This exposes patterns of behavior in a colored graph that could help you to get a deeper understanding of the personal trends you’re seeing.

Going from the iPhone to a Web app is becoming a more frequent trend. Going from the most used mobile platform to the open web seems to be a really viable option for a lot of apps these days, especially ones looking to appeal to groups of people with disparate technologies. It doesn’t make sense for a motivational app like Lift to adhere to an artificial divide between ‘iPhone users’ and ‘not iPhone users’. Though other native clients will come, this particular path is one we’re seeing more and more, and it seems right for Lift, who has proven progressive about other features like push notifications as well.

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Obvious Co.-backed habit forming app Lift comes from iPhone to Web and mobile devices with beautiful responsive design

Huawei launches the Ascend P6, a ridiculously thin Android smartphone with high-end specs to match

Huawei launched the Ascend P6 today, the world’s slimmest Android smartphone with some robust mid-to-high end specs.

The handset was unveiled at Huawei’s ‘Beauty’ event in London, just days before Samsung debuts a number of new Galaxy and ATIV devices at its dedicated ‘Premiere 2013′ event in the city.

The device isn’t a huge surprise though. Huawei confirmed its existence in May, using a number of teaser images and a post that revealed very little in terms of detail or specs.

The Ascend P6 is just 6.18mm thick and comes with a 1.5GHz quad-core processor in a sleek, metallic body. It offers a 4.7-inch high definition display – no word on the resolution for now – and what it describes as an “industry-leading” 5-megapixel front-facing camera.

The device runs on the latest version of Android, version 4.2.2, with Huawei’s custom Emotion UI slapped on top.

The @HuaweiDevice Twitter account posted a high-resolution image on June 14 teasing the Ascend P6 with what appears to be a metal body:

It was followed with a second image yesterday, however, that showed a white, plastic version of the smartphone with an unusual metallic case. It’s unclear if this is just one variant of the device, or if the case will be shipped as standard.

Huawei has also published a number of teaser images and a promotional video on YouTube, featuring a number of shots related to nature with the tagline “Beauty Worth Waiting for”.

Huawei is yet to make any real impact with a high-end Android smartphone, in part because it’s always focused on building devices at the lower-end of the price scale. Samsung currently dominates this space with the Galaxy S3, Note II and newly launched Galaxy S4 – which passed 10 million global sales in its first month – and it will take something rather special to knock it from its lofty perch.

HTC, Sony and a number of other competitors have tried to differentiate themselves, but their efforts are yet to resonate at anything like the same scale. Huawei is still a fairly unknown brand in Western markets, but an eye-catching device such as this one – especially if it can boast the title of the world’s thinnest smartphone – would help it stand out from the crowd.

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Huawei launches the Ascend P6, a ridiculously thin Android smartphone with high-end specs to match

Arne Ruhnau News

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Tag Archives: australia

Australian Style: Nicole Kidman, Naomi Watts And Other Aussies We Can Learn From (PHOTOS)