HTC To Invest In Dr. Dre’s Beats Electronics

HTC is about to invest $300 million in Dr. Dre’s Beats Electronics, maker of the famous Beats By Dre headphone line. This deal will eventually make Dr. Dre the richest rapper in the Hip-Hop world.

Dr. Dre is already one of the wealthiest rappers and producers in the world. He is the man behind famous names like Eminem, 50 Cent, Snoop Dogg and many more. This deal will make him more richer and ultimately the wealthiest rapper alive.

HTC wants to beat its competitors Samsung and Apple Inc. in the mobile market where the company is slowly losing its influence due to some patent infringement issues.

HTC will have 51% shares in Beats Electronics and will use its technology and influence to market its products more efficiently. Beats Electronics has got a huge number of fans worldwide and seeing this, we can say that HTC’s sales will increase for sure.

Dr. Dre’s worth is nearly $125 million right now and he is one of the few artists who have registered a net worth of $100 million or more. Following this huge investment by HTC, Dre’s worth will rise rapidly and who knows, maybe he’ll cross the $200 million mark.

On the other side, HTC will also be benefited as Dr. Dre’s name is a brand in itself.

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Angry Birds Developer To Trade In Baby Merchandise

The most widely used game which is present in every single smartphone and tablet will be soon seen on baby merchandise. Rovio, the developer of Angry Birds, has decided to move into the baby product business.

Rovio is keen to expand its business and seeing the success of its Angry Birds game, it can be said that the gaming company will succeed in its goal. Angry Birds toys are already available in the market and they too are being liked by a lot of people.

The Finland based company was started by 3 students and was sponsored by Nokia and HP in its initial stage but now it has become a multi-million dollar company.

Ville Heijari, vice president of franchise development, said that the company’s top priority will be game development for sure but at the same time it wants to enter merchandising venture as it is one of the fastest growing businesses.

Baby Merchandise will include a lot of products like a 42-inch square blanket having images of angry birds. Apart from baby products, Rovio will also provide flip-flops, bags and the iPhone cases with images from its game.

Will you get your baby an Angry Birds product?

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RIM Ready To Help UK Police In Tracking Rioters

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion(RIM) has offered to assist UK Police in tracking down rioters after riots broke out in London and other cities. Officially, RIM has not disclosed how it will help cops but we are pretty sure that this assistance will involve access to its BlackBerry Messenger service.

The riots broke out in London after police officers shot a black resident by the name of Mark Duggan, who was a suspect in a gun violence investigation.

People gathered to lead a peaceful march from Broadwater Farm to Tottenham police station demanding justice for Duggan family. The violence broke out after an alleged heated argument between a teenager and a police officer took place.

This offer by RIM is a genuine thing done by the Canadian giant in this situation. It will reduce the time to track down rioters and looters who wreaked havoc in London.

We at Technogazette strongly condemn any act of violence like this. It just shows that how short tempered people have become in this era.

People forgot the real cause of their march which was to demand justice for Duggan family. But justice cannot be achieved by looting and damaging property of innocent people. Protesters should have thought that someone lost a husband, a father, a son and a brother and by committing such cowardly thing, they were tarnishing his memory.

Our prayers are with Duggan family and everyone who suffered any kind of loss in these riots.

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Facebook Can Cause Serious Mental Health Problems In Kids ?

A study done by Dr. Larry D. Rosen, a professor of psychology at California State University, shows that the excessive use of social networking site Facebook can cause serious mental health problems like aggressive tendencies and antisocial behavior in kids.

The title of the study was “Poke Me: How Social Networks Can Both Help and Harm Our Kids” and is based on the findings by Dr. Rosen, who is studying the effect of technology in our day-to-day life for more than 25 years.

Rosen also said that the parents today think that by using a monitoring tool, they can limit their child’s social activity. But they are completely wrong as their kids are more technically advanced than them and usually find a way to work around that monitoring tool.

Though its negative impacts are more, the study shows that social networking has also made youngsters more efficient at communication skills and they can easily communicate with their teachers through social media.

The thing here is that like everything in this world, social networking has both pros and cons. It depends on the end users how to use a platform they have been provided with.

Do you think social networking is valuable or is it just a way to kill your time?

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Hackers Target Citigroup Japan

The world’s largest financial services network has been attacked by the hackers in Japan. Some hackers stole personal information of 92,048 Citigroup Inc. Japan credit card customers according to a report. Citi said that customer account numbers, names, addresses, personal identification numbers and card security numbers were stolen.

This is not the first time that Citigroup has suffered from Data Theft. According to a Citi disclosure in June, hackers stole nearly $2.7 million from its North American customers. Citi covered customer losses by paying $2.7 million to the affected customers.

According to some security experts, who are familiar with the matter, this attack was done by a third party vendor who had access to Citi’s internal systems. This means that there is a chance that perpetrators might have got some inside help.

Citi has started contacting all the affected customers and is advising them to change their security codes. But will this advice from the world’s largest financial services provider enough?

Citibank is one of the major banks of the world and is a consumer banking venture of financial services giant Citigroup. Till now Citi has not provided any details about the security breach or how the perpetrators managed to access its internal systems.

It seems that Citi indeed was “sleeping” when the information of customers was being stolen.

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Google+’s Real Name Rules Are “Abuse Of Power”: A Microsoft Researcher

A Microsoft researcher by the name of Dana Boyd openly criticized the “Real Name” policy of Google+ calling it an “abuse of power” by the tech giant. This news comes amidst the so called “bogus patents” feud between Google and Microsoft.

According to the “real name” policy of Google+, users cannot use pseudonyms or nicknames in their profiles. Earlier, Google+ used to delete the accounts which were found to violate this policy but now a days it has started giving the users a chance to provide their real name if they don’t want their account suspended.

Dana Boyd said that,” ‘Real names’ policies aren’t empowering; they’re an authoritarian assertion of power over vulnerable people.” She stated that the people who use pseudonyms are the ones who are most marginalized by power structures.

Though the statement of Dana Boyd is genuine but it has come at a time when Microsoft and Google are playing the “blame game” openly.

Furthermore, Microsoft is also rumored to launch its social platform in the coming months. Hence this statement though not of Microsoft, is being seen as a declaration of social war.

We think that this “Real Names” policy is rubbish and there is no need of such kind of dumb “policies” especially on a leading social network.

Do you agree with Dana Boyd or support this “policy” of Google+?

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Windows Phone Down 38%

Microsoft has tried its best to boost its smartphone sales but recent data from comScore shows that Microsoft’s share in US smartphone market has decreased from 7.5% to 5.8%, nearly 38%, which is not a good sign for the company’s future in smartphone sector.

Recently, Microsoft’s Mango OS, which is said to be the best software update by the tech giant till now, was deployed in Fujitsu-Toshiba’s IS12T and it is expected that major manufacturers will also be using this OS in their future handsets.

But the thing here is that “Mango” is yet not widely available in the market and even when it does, there is no guarantee that it will be able to create a buzz as experts say that its competition will be with the iPhone 5 and some major Android based smartphones.

Microsoft Windows Phones are quite good but they haven’t enjoyed the limelight as much as the handsets based on Android OS and the iDevices.

Most likely, the reason behind this is that Windows Phones are not advertised as much as its competitors especially in third world countries who are the largest consumers of smartphones. Secondly, it is not as cost effective as Android based handsets.

Will “Mango” be able to boost Windows Phone sales or has it been a bit late to do the needful?

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Gmail Introduces Preview Pane

Gmail has introduced a new feature in the form of Preview Pane which will enable users to browse emails when they are replying to some other at the same time. This feature was long awaited and was finally launched yesterday.

Preview Pane may be a new feature for PC users but it has been there for a while in Gmail’s tablet apps. Users of iPad and Android based tablets are familiar with Preview Pane.

This feature is now available in Gmail Labs and its design is almost identical to that of its counterpart used in tablets.

When a user activates Preview Pane, a three window panel opens up with Preview Pane in between the navigation and email panes.

Users can customize Preview Pane as per their need with the help of a settings button which is present at the top right corner of Gmail.

Users with high resolution screens will get the most of this feature but those with normal resolution need not to worry as Preview Pane will work fine with their screens also.

Though this feature sounds good but a lot of work is needed to make it better. We’ve used this feature and drawn a conclusion that it is still a beta product and it needs a lot of testing. It does not work well with Gmail labels if used in 3 panel mode.

Will you be using this feature?

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Beware Of The Pottermore Scam

Are you a Harry Potter fan? Do you want to lay your hands on Pottermore website before anyone else? Then wait. You might get targeted by online scammers who are selling fake Pottermore accounts to access the exclusive content by JK Rowling.

Pottermore is a website by JK Rowling which will feature exclusive stories and some background information about the popular Harry Potter series. It will be officially opening in October.

But even in August, some people are selling fake Pottermore accounts online which they claim will give a user access to all the exclusive content before anyone else.

Let us warn you that these accounts are not legitimate. Most of the times, these scammers ask for money in return of the account which never works but sometimes, they even direct their targets to infected sites and at the end, user find himself amidst viruses and other sorts of malware.

This is an example of innumerable cases where scammers try to cash a latest news by hitting their target’s field of interest.

We advice our readers to stay out of these type of tricks by being aware and even if you are quite sure that the person is not cheating, do run a background check on the service he is claiming and if possible, the person himself.

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Google Accuses Microsoft And Apple Over “Bogus Patents”

The “battle of patents” between tech giant Google and its rivals Microsoft and Apple Inc. is in news again. Google has accused its rivals of buying some technology patents with a soul motive to hold back Android.

Google’s lawyers claimed in a blog post that Microsoft and Apple are playing dirty game of using so called “bogus patents” against Google’s Android.

Google’s chief legal officer David Drummond stated that Android’s success has forced its rivals to unite and to use cheap tactics against the open source OS.

He further stated that patents are meant to safeguard intellectual property and to increase innovation but now-a-days they are merely being used by some companies to stop others from succeeding in their goals.

Google has lost a lot of patents in past months, mostly owned by Novell and Nortel, which relate to the technologies that can be used in smartphones especially in the Android OS. Most of these patents were bought by an alliance between a number of tech companies which was lead by Microsoft and Apple.

Google’s accusation seems genuine for the time being as fighting with an individual competitor is one thing but fighting a battle against an alliance of its competitors is a very tough thing and chances of Google winning this battle are nearly zero.

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