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Lee bounces back, fans 12 as Phillies blank Nats
Back at his best after an unusually brief outing, Cliff Lee struck out 12 in a three-hit shutout, allowing the Phillies to overcome their own problems at the plate in a 4-0 victory over the Nationals.
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Fox <b>News</b> Throughout History: Pics, Videos, Links, <b>News</b>
Fox News Throughout History: History is written by the pundits winners. As long as humans have existed, they've tried to spin historical events to shed themselves in the best light. And their enemies in the worst.
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Obama Exclusive: I Was Born in Hawaii and I Don't 'Have Horns <b>...</b>
I thought the president would take a pass when I asked him about Donald Trump's rise to the top of the Republican field in my exclusive interview today. Far from it. He grabbed at the chance with a big smile... ABC News' George ...
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Apple has reportedly become more aggressive in securing components from overseas suppliers, making moves such as upfront cash payments to both ensure supply and block out competitors.
Analyst Brian White with Ticonderoga Securities said in a note to investors on Thursday that Apple began "aggressively attacking" the component situation in Japan following the earthquake and tsunami that struck the country. The iPhone maker reportedly sent executives to suppliers immediately to ensure adequate supply of components, and also began offering upfront cash payments.
Separately, White's contacts in Taiwan also revealed that Apple is allegedly securing component capacity using what is known as a "three cover guarantee," referring to capacity, stock and price. Apple's move is seen as one that could potentially block out competitors and prevent them from building ample supply of devices.
The information comes as a separate report out of the Far East suggested that a one-month delay for Research in Motion's PlayBook tablet was as a result of Apple securing most of the available touch panel production capacity. The delay has forced the PlayBook to go on sale after Apple's in-demand iPad 2.
Last month, it was said that Apple could agree to price hikes in order to secure touch panel supply, particularly in the aftermath of the Japan earthquake. Apple was said to be in talks with component makers about touch panel pricing, and allegedly considered some price increases in negotiations.
In the company's last quarterly earnings call, Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook revealed that Apple had invested $3.9 billion of its nearly $60 billion in cash reserves in long-term supply contracts. He declined to reveal what components Apple had put its money toward, citing competitive concerns, but said that it was a strategic move that would position the company well in the future.
Analysts largely believe that the secret investment was related to touch panel displays that are the centerpiece of devices like the iPhone and iPad. One cost breakdown estimated that such an investment could secure Apple 136 million iPhone displays, or 60 million iPad touch panels.
It's a move similar to 2005, when Apple inked a major deal with Samsung to secure longterm supply of flash memory. NAND flash would go on to become a major part of Apple's products, including the iPhone, iPad and new MacBook Air.
Video calls were a mainstay of classic sci-fi films, and even today there’s something almost magical about seeing your friends and family on the screen of a portable device. Video calling has been around for some time, but it’s only really in the past year or so that its got more attention among regular users. That’s thanks in no small part to Apple and FaceTime, as found on the iPhone 4, iPad 2 and other gadgets from the company’s range. Read on as we give FaceTime the full SlashGear 101 treatment!
So Apple invented video calling, right?
No, not at all, though they did do a lot to make it easier to use – just as long as you have the right hardware. Video calling is actually a part of the 3G standard, which – if the carrier and whatever phone you’re using supports it, which isn’t the case in the US – has been available since around 2003. Unfortunately a combination of high pricing, poor understanding by users, mediocre quality and patchy reliability meant this form of video calling has never really taken off.
Apple’s FaceTime takes advantage of the company’s tight control over the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and MacBook software, which has allowed it to polish the video calling experience to the point where everyday use is possible. Now FaceTime is available to anybody at the touch of an on-screen button.
Do I need an Apple phone to use FaceTime?
Not necessarily a phone, but definitely something with the Apple logo. FaceTime was first supported on the iPhone 4, which was Apple’s first mobile device with a front-facing camera (i.e. one that looks at the user, rather than out the back of the handset). The latest iPod touch and iPad 2 both have front-facing cameras and FaceTime support as well, and Apple has released a FaceTime app for its Mac and MacBook computers so they can join in the fun as well. FaceTime comes free on the mobile devices and the very latest Macs, and is a $0.99 download from the Mac App Store for earlier Mac owners.
Okay, so how do I use it?
It’s pretty simple, just as Apple was aiming for. On the iPhone you make a voice call in the normal way and then tap the FaceTime button on-screen to switch to video. On the iPod touch and iPad 2, you start a video call in the FaceTime app. You’ll need an Apple account in order to make and receive calls, since that’s used as the “phone number” for devices other than the iPhone 4.
Currently, FaceTime video calls can only be made when you have a WiFi connection, not when you’re using the mobile network for data. That’s a limitation Apple has put in place itself, though the company has said it is working on removing it in the future.
I’m not into Apple, can I video call with something else?
You certainly can, though the process gets a bit trickier. Various apps are available for Android and other mobile phone platforms which promise video calls, sometimes over not only WiFi but the 3G mobile networks too. That means you can make video calls when away from your home network or a WiFi hotspot, as long as your signal is strong enough.
Skype, Fring and Qik are all among the companies offering video calling apps, though their effectiveness often varies on a phone-by-phone basis. Not all phones have front-facing cameras, either, though they’re becoming more common on the latest handsets. A future SlashGear 1010 feature will look at the best video calling apps if FaceTime isn’t your thing.
Apple has said it plans to open up FaceTime to other manufacturers, so that non-Apple phones can make and receive calls too, but so far there’s no sign of that actually happening.
More information at Apple’s FaceTime page.
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Editor’s note: This discussion about the superphone platform is one of the five themes we will be focusing on at the VentureBeat Mobile Summit, on April 25-26. We’ve carefully invited the top executives in mobile to discuss the biggest challenges of the day, which, if solved, can lead to much faster growth in the industry. And at our enterprise session, we’ll have top executives around the table from a number of companies, including Verizon, AT&T, Cisco, Salesforce, Box.net, and more. (If you think you should be part of the discussion, you can apply for a ticket.)
Don’t expect to find the core applications that run the pistons of a business as native apps in Apple’s App Store. With a few exceptions, the future is touch-enabled web applications that will bring a more complete version of a vendor’s feature set to any tablet.
I’ll say it more explicitly: Native apps are for phones, gadgets and games. Touch-enabled web apps are for tablets and broad business applications.
The iPhone’s size has almost necessitated an alternative user experience for business apps, but the iPad’s screen real estate does not suffer that limitation.
The iPad has been in the market for over one year. Conspicuously absent from SmartSheet’s Top iPad Apps for Business lists — produced over the last 8 months by 10 industry watchers — are any cross-business operating apps tackling customer relationship management (CRM), accounting, project management and the like.
Smart software companies are building tablet access into their core products by touch-enabling their existing web applications. For some vendors with form-based solutions, the effort may be fairly simple, for others with rich desktop-class UIs, it is more complex.
Some serious business apps have native tablet versions, but they are either narrow business functions or small carve-outs of their overall solution. Here are some examples:
Some examples of companies with broader business operations applications that are benefiting from the touch-enabled web app approach are:
The key reasons to go native on the iPhone / iPad have been: performance, access to device features (geo-location, camera, etc….), offline support, and most importantly, an entry in the App Store Directory (this will be the only remaining benefit to building native business apps in 12- 18 months).
But the following dynamics in the tablet ecosystem are predicting the demise of that native apps advantage:
Competition Among Tablets Will Dramatically Improve Performance
Intense competition in the tablet market will drive hardware, browser and connectivity performance closer and closer to parity with PCs. Note the step up in hardware power from the iPad to the recently released Motorola Xoom and iPad 2. Vendors do not build native apps for PCs and Laptops any more, and the reasons for that will be just as valid for tablets.
HTML5 Will Erase Native App’s Device Advantage
HTML5 will give browser apps powers that today are only accessible by native apps such as instant on, access to camera, location, and off-line. And, unless it’s a game, most apps require connectivity to be useful anyway. (Here’s a good write-up on this.)
Web Apps Will Outpace and Outreach the Natives (adding features vs platforms)
As more tablets come to market on more operating systems, ISVs will become weighted down building redundant apps for each OS. This will inherently come at the expense of adding more features to a single web app. Inherent in any application development toolkit are its limitations, and Apple’s is no different. Richer experiences are possible with today’s browser development tools.
Businesses Will Favor App Stores that Include “Bookmark a Link” Apps
Apple forbids “pointers” or “very thin wrappers” to touch-enabled web business apps. This benefits Apple, but not business users. There are a host of good business apps that work on the iPad browser, but they’re not present in the App Store. This is slowing the growth of the iPad as a business tool. The marketplace that lists compatible business apps will have a broad audience – one that expects them.
The debate will continue on both the mobile and tablet fronts and it depends on a multitude of factors, but ultimately businesses will choose which approach delivers a more compelling user experience for their specific application. ZDNet reports on three of the key business scenarios prevalent with the iPad, which includes 1) sales people out in the field, 2) executives on an overnight trip, and 3) warehouse managers, retail floor staff, medical staff, and anybody else that needs real access to apps while on their feet.
A tablet untethers the user categories above from a desk if it can handle typically more comprehensive operational business applications that can cover a diversity of business needs. For example, this video shows the owner of a 109-year-old lumber operation bringing automation to the mill floor via the iPad. For this company and the millions just like it, the need for rich tablet-ready business apps is real, but native apps aren’t there yet. Thankfully, there is an app for that. But you’ll have to look beyond the App Store.
Brent Frei is the founder of Smartsheet, an online project management and collaboration tool. He submitted this story to VentureBeat as part of a series leading up to our Mobile Summit later this month.
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One important thing about cities is their sex appeal — their magnetism. Places flourish when they attract people, resources, opportunities, and ideas, and match them to one another. Cities are much more than the built environment of roads and real estate. Cities are about relationships, and whether people have access to opportunities. Cities are one big dating game.
When cities lose their magnetism, the whole population suffers. The deterioration of Detroit began well before recent auto industry woes; its population plunge was confirmed by the latest Census. Some attribute decline to bad urban redevelopment schemes or corrupt politics that failed to improve schools or reduce crime. "A once-great American city today repels people of talent and ambition," a Wall Street Journal columnist wrote recently. A local leader told him, "It's been class warfare on steroids, and ... so many Detroiters who had the means — black and white — have fled the city."
Cleveland is another shrunken city with significant poverty. In the 1980s, Cleveland Tomorrow, a coalition of major company CEOs, sponsored downtown projects, including a new baseball stadium and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This attracted luxury apartment developments, luring the affluent to the center city and revitalizing it. But inner city ghettoes were barely touched, and the region continued to lose high-wage manufacturing.
There's a tale of two cities within many city borders: one rich, the other very poor. Dubai, a gleaming new city of luxury high rises, is ringed by hidden slums for temporary service workers from the underclass of Asian nations. In New York, the middle class, including young families, cannot afford to live in the city. Baton Rouge has affluent areas with some of Louisiana's best quality-of-life indicators and extreme poverty areas with some of the worst. Other divides include racial and ethnic enclaves that vary in opportunities — for example, minority entrepreneurs with promising business ideas who can't access mainstream sources of capital and support.
Cities should be connectors but can have connection problems. Cities are where all parts of life come together: jobs, health, education, environmental quality. Yet, in most cities, businesses, schools, hospitals, and city services still operate in silos. And the political boundaries of cities don't encompass their true extent or the flow of people, as the Brookings' Metropolitan Policy Center points out. IBM's Smarter Cities Challenge supports efforts to use technology for connected regional solutions.
Interdependence among urban issues makes vicious cycles worse. If there is no action on high youth unemployment or poor educational quality and high school dropout rates, then too many African-American males end up in prison. High crime rates make sections of cities undesirable, and neighborhoods deteriorate. Aging buildings and toxic environments then cause health problems, such as lead poisoning or asthma, which disproportionately affect inner city children. Children in poor health have trouble learning, learning problems are associated with school dropouts, and vicious cycles continue.
Pivotal investments can start virtuous cycles. The transformation of Miami from sleepy southern city to international trade hub and informal capital of Latin America was propelled by investments in a world class airport and a flood of immigrants from Fidel Castro's Cuba. Mayors and civic leaders took advantage of this to attract new businesses and tout Latin connections, as my book World Class describes. But progress stalls if benefits don't reach the grass roots, racial divides persist, and major institutions fail to collaborate. The Miami Foundation's emerging leaders program is designed to deploy diverse younger professionals for major civic projects.
Revitalizing cities requires national urban policy investments and social innovations on the ground. Leadership might come from:
- Enlightened mayors who build public-private partnerships or join Cities of Service, which align the city and non-profits around high-impact goals.
- Business leaders, such as former Miami Herald publisher David Lawrence, who rallied Miami-Dade County to vote for a tax increase (Yes to new taxes!) to create the Children's Trust, a fund to improve life for all children.
- Faith communities, such as Rev. Raymond Jetson's community organizing toward a coalition for "A Better Baton Rouge."
- Financiers, such as Tim Ferguson and Ron Walker, who co-founded Next Street to invest in inner city businesses.
- Social entrepreneurs, such as Hubie Jones, who wants to replicate a birth-to-college educational model like the Harlem Children's Zone in Boston.
- Community foundations with a strategic perspective, seeking integrated solutions across issues such as youth employment, education, health, and green plans.
The best social innovations will connect people and institutions, producing an infrastructure for collaboration. That social infrastructure will increase the sex appeal of cities by going beyond initial attraction to build lasting relationships for lasting improvements.
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Obama Exclusive: I Was Born in Hawaii and I Don't 'Have Horns <b>...</b>
I thought the president would take a pass when I asked him about Donald Trump's rise to the top of the Republican field in my exclusive interview today. Far from it. He grabbed at the chance with a big smile... ABC News' George ...
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NBC <b>News</b>, CNBC, MSNBC All Particpating in NBCU's 2011 'Earth Week <b>...</b>
The networks of NBC Universal, including CNBC, MSNBC and NBC News, are all lining up green-themed programming for the 2011 installment of the company's Green is Universal “Earth Week” April 17-24. On “Today” Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda ...
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