HTC’s “Facebook phones” revealed

Rumors had been swirling for weeks that HTC had a pair of new Android phones with deep Facebook integration in the offing, and now the two handsets—the Salsa and the ChaCha, both with their own, dedicated Facebook buttons—have finally been unveiled, Yahoo News reports. Details on the Salsa, which comes with a 3.4-inch display, and its little brother, the 2.6-inch ChaCha, are still a little sketchy; indeed, reporters and bloggers at HTC’s press conference at the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona could only gaze at the two handsets through a pane of protective glass…

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Multitasking, cut-and-paste support coming to Windows Phone 7

Two of the biggest complaints about Microsoft’s mobile OS reboot–no multitasking for third-party apps, and no cutting and pasting–will be fixed before the year is out, with the initial cut-and-paste update slated to arrive next month, reports Yahoo News. Speaking at Microsoft’s Mobile World Congress keynote in Barcelona on Monday, Steve Ballmer promised that the first of two patches for Windows Phone 7–the one that adds cut and paste functionality, as well as tweaks supporting handsets on CDMA networks, such as those run by Sprint and Verizon Wireless–will be coming in early March. Meanwhile, a second, “major” patch is due in the second half of this year–no word on exactly when–and will add a slew of new features, including multitasking for third-party apps, cloud-based storage for Office documents, Twitter integration into Windows Phone 7’s “People” hub (which, for now, only taps into Facebook), and a revamped mobile browser based on Internet Explorer 9…

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Acer Iconia A100: A 7-Inch Android tablet (with Honeycomb!)

Acer may take the plunge to put Android 3.0 on a 7-inch tablet, according to reports from this week’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. The company is showing off the Iconia A100 tablet and says it will run Honeycomb, which Google launched a few weeks ago, reports GigaOm. Up until now, the smallest Android 3.0 tablet I’ve seen is the 8.9-inch LG Optimus Pad, or G-Slate as it will be known on T-Mobile here in the U.S. Even Samsung, with the success of its 7-inch Galaxy Tab running Android 2.2, has yet to announce a Honeycomb tablet smaller than the new Galaxy Tab 10.1. The Iconia A100 being shown off at MWC is currently running on Android 2.2, so show attendees can’t get a look at Honeycomb on the smaller screen. According to the MobileBurn blog, the A100 will see Honeycomb when the device launches in the UK this April. I’ll be interested to see how Acer accomplishes such a feat, given the expected 1024×600 resolution of the device. Many sites are reporting that Nvidia’s Tegra 2 will power the A100, and while Nvidia confirms this in a blog post today, it makes no mention of the smaller tablet display size. However, there are many pictures and videos confirming the 7-inch screen…

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Nokia, Microsoft in pact to rival Apple, Google

Technology titans Nokia and Microsoft are combining forces to make smart phones that might challenge rivals like Apple and Google and revive their own fortunes in a market they have struggled to keep up with, the Associated Press reports. Nokia Corp., the world’s largest maker of mobile phones, said Friday it plans to use Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Phone software as the main platform for its smart phones in an effort to pull market share away from Apple’s iPhone and Android, Google’s software for phones and tablets. The move marks a major strategy shift for Nokia, which has previously equipped devices with its own software. Analysts said the deal was a bigger win for Microsoft than Nokia, whose CEO Stephen Elop in a leaked memo this week compared his company to a burning oil platform with “more than one explosion … fueling a blazing fire around us.”

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News Corporation introduces The Daily, a digital-only newspaper

Rupert Murdoch on Wednesday pushed the send button on The Daily, a news application designed for the iPad that he hopes will position his News Corporation front and center in the digital newsstand of the future, reports the New York Times.

 “New times demand new journalism,” Mr. Murdoch said on stage at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York before an audience of reporters, media executives, employees and advertising partners.

The Daily will be a first of its kind for tablet computers: a general interest publication that will refresh every morning and will bill customers’ credit cards each week for 99 cents or each year for $40.…Read More

Colleges could profit as internet runs out of addresses

Technology experts have been preparing for the depletion of IPv4 addresses since the 1990s.

The internet is running out of numerical addresses – known as IP addresses – and that might not be so bad for colleges and universities prepared for the transition to the next web protocol, as campuses could sell their current IP addresses and help fill budget shortfalls prevalent in higher education.

The spread of internet use in Asia and the proliferation of internet-connected phones worldwide are causing the internet to run out of numerical addresses, which act as “phone numbers” to ensure that surfers reach websites and eMails find their destination.

The top-level authority that governs such addresses will distribute the last batches on Feb. 3, two people with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press.…Read More

New service lets voices from Egypt be heard

With the unruly sounds of protests in the background, the Egyptian man declared there were 50,000 demonstrators in the streets of Cairo. “And the number is growing,” he said, raising his voice to be heard on the recording. Unedited, raw, anonymous and emotional, Egyptian voices are trickling out through a new service that evades attempts by the authorities to suppress them by cutting internet services, reports the New York Times. There is still some cellphone service, so a new social-media link that marries Google, Twitter and SayNow, a voice-based social media platform, gives Egyptians three phone numbers to call and leave a message, which is then posted on the internet as a recorded Twitter message. The messages are at twitter.com/speak2tweet and can also be heard by telephone…

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Verizon to offer $30/month unlimited data plan for iPhone

Yep, you’ll be able to get unlimited data with the upcoming Verizon iPhone, carrier execs have confirmed. Meanwhile, word has it that Verizon may nix a cheaper, capped 3G data plan, Yahoo News reports. Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam finally confirmed the news to the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, adding that he hoped the all-you-can-eat 3G plan could tempt more current iPhone users who were grandfathered into AT&T’s old unlimited data plan…

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10 of the best apps for higher education

As iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches become more integrated in classrooms, educators and students are looking for new ways to apply them for teaching and learning. There are many applications on all of these devices that can help automate current classroom processes or present new ways to learn that previously had been unexplored.

In this special feature, we’ve assembled a list of education “apps” for Apple devices that we think are noteworthy for higher education. The majority are free, while the others range in price from $0.99 to $9.99. What do you think of these apps? And, which education apps for Apple devices are you using now that aren’t on our list? Share your thoughts in the comments section of this story.

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Are Android tablets vapor? Or just not here?

Everyone seems to have proclaimed that this was the “year of the tablet” at the Consumer Electronics Show. But while I certainly saw a whole lot of tablets at the show, what strikes me most, in retrospect, is just how unfinished nearly all the tablets were, reports Michael J. Miller for PC Magazine. I left intrigued by the possibilities, but more skeptical about the market than most of my colleagues. Partly, there were so many tablets because it seems like every vendor thinks they fit into their existing market. Phone makers think of tablets as large smartphones — with or without calling features. TV makers think of tablets just as smaller screens on which to watch video and other content. PC makers think of tablets as laptops without keyboards. Monitor makers think of them as portable monitors. Book sellers think of them as electronic book readers…

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