Daily Crunch: Check-In Edition

MConcierge rolls out Guest Relationship Management solution for hospitality sector Art Lebedev Studio? Optimus Mini Six Hits Production, Will Land On Desks Later This Year Whiteboard Wall Clock Is Minimal And Practical The Nissan Leaf Review: A Fun And Practical Electric Car For The Masses Review: The HP Palm TouchPad

Source: http://www.crunchgear.com/2011/06/30/daily-crunch-check-in-edition/

Benjamin Schötz Johannes Liebl Arne Koller Fiona Brandenburg

The droid nobody was looking for: an R2-D2 MP4 player

We all know the story of how Artoo braved the sands of Tatooine to deliver Princess Leia's message to old Ben, but we never guessed that he encoded it as an MP4. Leave it to Toys 'R' Us to set the story straight: R2-D2 was a music player, C-3P0 was an overcomplicated set of earbuds, and MPEG-4 is apparently a galactic standard music format. Who knew? According to the droid's product page, it can hold up to 500 songs on 2GB of internal storage. There's also a questionable image (we're looking at you, Empire Photoshop brigade) promising video playback, photo storage, extras, settings and some sort of recording feature. We aren't sure if this choppy image can be trusted, but we're thinking about sending out some Bothan spies to investigate.

The droid nobody was looking for: an R2-D2 MP4 player originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 Nov 2011 03:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Technabob  |  sourceToys R Us  | Email this | Comments


Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/8L1UUEiOr94/

Laura Ungricht Edith Berner Lea Linden Kevin Fickenscher

Google Pages now open to businesses and brands

As promised — or at least as constantly talked about — Google+ has been opened up to businesses and brands so everyone and their enterprise can now get in on the social sharing action:
Google+ has always been a place for real-life sharing, and Google+ Pages is
...

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/R0T5EQQZq6Y/story01.htm

Vivien Strupp Elena Lasch Hans-Jürgen Haake Arno Zimmerling

New periodic table element names confirmed, textbook makers sigh in relief

What's in a name? If you're the general assembly of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, then quite a lot. It's that bunch who have finally rubber-stamped the names of elements Darmstadtium (110), Roentgenium (111) and Copernicum (112) on the Periodic table. The trio are so named in honor of Darmstadt (where it was first created), Wilhelm Röntgen (discoverer of X-Rays) and Nicolaus Copernicus (explaining the universe since 1533). All three elements are "super-heavy", lab-created substances that rapidly degrade down into less interesting materials -- Copernicium-285 has a relatively long half-life of 29 seconds. The ratification went without a hitch, causing a sigh of relief amongst the textbook makers who have included the elements in the table for quite some time. Although we were hoping that element 111 would have to change its name back to the original, nearly unpronounceable unununium.

[Image courtesy of the BBC / Talkback Thames]

New periodic table element names confirmed, textbook makers sigh in relief originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 Nov 2011 18:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceThe Telegraph  | Email this | Comments


Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/4c_5LxUyiGA/

Antonia Koppe Gertrud Hölzl Ulrike Kellner Nicola Kohnen

British royal family announces iOS and Android wedding app

William and KateTo celebrate the imminent marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton, the Royal Collection will release an Android an iOS app that chronicles the last seven royal marriages, including Queen Victoria's marriage to Prince Albert in 1840.

Ironically, the app won't actually feature anything to do with William and Kate's marriage -- rather, it will focus on the "tradition, splendor and romance" that are intrinsic to British royal marriages. "[The app] will share the stories of past royal weddings and offer a wealth of historical context for the ceremony on April 29."

Unfortunately, the app, which has been lumbered with the fantastically creative name of 'Royal App,' won't be available until April 18 -- just 11 days before Kate's big day. It won't be free, either: it'll cost the rather princely sum of £1.79, or three of your Tea Party-loving dollars. The money will go to the Royal Collection, though, which is a good cause!

British royal family announces iOS and Android wedding app originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 05 Apr 2011 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/05/british-royal-family-announces-ios-and-android-wedding-app/

Edgar Betz Antonia Koppe Gertrud Hölzl Ulrike Kellner

Zoho Docs 2.0 adds iPad support

zoho docs ipad
Zoho has offered an iOS app for a while now -- at least for the iPhone and iPod touch. Those of you who have been wanting to use the Zoho app on your iPad were out of luck, but that's no longer the case.

Zoho Docs 2.0 has landed in the App Store, and the most notable change is that it's now a universal app. Now you're able to take advantage of the app's mobile productivity powers on your larger iOS device. Retina display support has also been added, as have document sharing options -- which you can utilize in both the viewer and collaboration modes.

Just like the basic Zoho service, the app is available totally free of charge. Paid subscriptions get you additional storage space and start at $3 per month for professional use.

Zoho Docs 2.0 adds iPad support originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 06 Apr 2011 22:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/06/zoho-docs-2-0-app-for-ipad-arrives/

Markus Wigger Alexander Berner Oliver Büdenbender Christa Eymann

Gargantuan SQL injection infects 3.8 million URLs, installs rogue antivirus

LizaMoon SQL injection rogue AV
Over the last few days, a mass SQL injection attack has been quickly gathering speed. Just three days ago only 28,000 URLs were affected, but at the time of writing, there could be up to 3.8 million infected URLs.

Websense
has a complete write up the attack, dubbed 'LizaMoon,' but here's the basic gist: it looks like someone is exploiting a vulnerabilty (or vulnerabilities) in hundreds of thousands of websites running on Microsoft SQL Server 2003 and 2005. It's not yet known whether this is a vulnerability in SQL Server, or simply a case of outdated, unmaintained, and easily-exploitable CMSes.

The attack takes the form of an SQL injection, which then inserts a link to a JavaScript file hosted on the attacker's server. This is repeated over and over until every Web page in the SQL database has been infected -- and considering 3.8 million URLs have been infected, you can see that this is a very easy, and automated, attack.

Fortunately, the JavaScript isn't particularly malicious: it pops up a rogue AV program called Windows Stability Center, but that's it. Better yet, the rogue antivirus is already recognized by a bunch of real antivirus suites, including Avast, Panda and Microsoft Security Essentials.

The real problem with SQL injection attacks is that there's nothing we surfers can do about them. There will always be old and unmaintained websites, and thus SQL injections will remain one of the easiest and most lucrative tools of hackers and spammers alike. All you can do is keep your antivirus and anti-malware software up to date, and pray.

Gargantuan SQL injection infects 3.8 million URLs, installs rogue antivirus originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 01 Apr 2011 05:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/01/massive-sql-injection-infects-3-8-million-urls-installs-rogue-a/

Charlotte Kadelbach Hugo Ruß Edith Hupertz Heinrich Peller

Use?s of the ipad

The use’s of the ipad far goes beyond just gaming and watching movies or videos, it can be used for streaming live news coverage. Though this is not the main reason why many will choose an ipad, it is still a very useful feature to have as it makes it easier to read your news at your own time or while it?s getting streamed. Because of its highly developed graphics processor streaming, live news coverage and playing games on the [...]

Source: http://tabletbuzzblog.com/uses-of-the-ipad/

Malin Hock Helmut Hölzer Maurice Giese Frederik Faulhaber

AT&T commits to LTE-Advanced deployment in 2013, Hesse and Mead unfazed

This should come as no surprise, but following Sprint and Verizon's previous commitment to an LTE-Advanced future, one who breathes could justifiably assume that AT&T might have something to say on the matter. Well, that time has come. Speaking at the LTE North America conference in Dallas, the CEO of AT&T Labs, Krish Prabhu, has confirmed that Ma Bell intends to begin the deployment of its LTE-Advanced network in 2013. Sadly, he didn't elaborate any further, (which leaves a pretty wide target, if you ask us). Still, with the potential for improved capacity, coverage and stupid fast speeds, we're not exactly complaining. As for that target year of 2013, bring it on.

AT&T commits to LTE-Advanced deployment in 2013, Hesse and Mead unfazed originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 Nov 2011 21:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Phone Scoop  |  sourceFierceWireless  | Email this | Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/08/atandt-commits-to-lte-advanced-deployment-in-2013-hesse-and-mead/

Mika Bernhardt Ingeburg Liebermann Elsa Alexander Furtmann Siegrid Holstein

Bing begins roll out of HTML5-enhanced search interface

Bing transitions
Bing's new HTML5-and-CSS3-enhanced search interface, which was first demonstrated back in September 2010 to showcase the power of IE9, has started to roll out.

The most notable addition to the new interface is is smooth page transitions -- the fade in and out -- and navigation tabs (maps, images, videos, etc.) now persistently float at the top of the page. WinRumors is also reporting that a feature reminiscent of Google Instant search is being added to Bing, with page elements smoothly transitioning in and out as you type in your search query.

If you want to try out the new Bing UI, your best bet is to set your locale to United States - English and pray that you're part of the initial roll out. Alternatively, just wait a few days until MIX 2011, Microsoft's Web developer conference, which is when the new Bing UI should be officially launched.

Bing begins roll out of HTML5-enhanced search interface originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 08 Apr 2011 06:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/08/bing-begins-roll-out-of-html5-enhanced-search-interface/

Finja Kerkhoff Sascha Dörr