Samsung's New Laptop Looks Like A MacBook Wannabe (But It's Still Awesome)

We tested Samsung's new QX410 laptop that was just released this Fall and we're very impressed.

Despite the fact that it borrows heavily from Apple's MacBook design (even down to the clean white box it comes in), the QX410 packs the power of a high-end laptop into an incredibly affordable package.

Here's what we thought:

• The 14" LED display is awesome. Streaming video and DVDs looked gorgeous and were incredibly bright.

• It's speedy. Boot up and shut down were fast. Applications loaded quickly.

• It has WiMAX built in so you can access Clear's 4G network. (You'll need an extra service plan from Clear).

• It's light (only 5 pounds) and just over an inch thick, making it very portable and easy to use on your lap.

• You can't beat what you get for the price ($799.99): Intel Core i5 processor, 4 GB RAM, a 640 GB hard drive, and 512 MB NVIDIA GeForce 310M graphics card.

• The track pad was a pain to use. It's multi-touch and there are no mouse buttons (just like the MacBook), but it's too sensitive. There's definitely a learning curve: At first we kept accidentally clicking links and opening applications, but eventually got the hang of it.

• The sound quality was above average for a laptop, but if you plan on watching a lot of movies, you should invest in a nice pair of headphones.

Overall, the QX410 is a great machine. And it's versatile. There's plenty of power under the hood for business users and it's light and perfectly priced for casual computing. If you're looking for one of the best PC laptop values available this holiday, this is the one to buy. You can order now from Best Buy.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/samsungs-new-laptop-is-a-macbook-wannabe-2010-12#ixzz17b8nAL41

Groupon: More Anti-Facebook Armor for Google

What if Google’s hunger to buy Groupon isn’t really about Groupon? Let’s think of the rumored deal as a $6 billion weapon for Google’s current and future war against Facebook.

Increasingly the two giants are fishing in the same ponds. Google recently started to offer local businesses an opportunity to pitch deals to users of Google search. Facebook this month launched an initiative it calls “Deals,” to offer discounts to Facebook users in the vicinity of local stores. (Sound familiar? Yup, these are just like Groupon.)

Everett Collection

Google v. Facebook: Who will land the knockout punch?

Facebook just weeks ago launched a messaging service –- don’t call it email, Mark Zuckerberg says –- that competes with Google’s Gmail. Google is working on its own social-networking features and games that could rival how Facebook users spend their downtime. And increasingly, Facebook and Google are competing in the same talent pool. The New York Times reported in recent days that at least 142 Facebook employees (out of 1,700) are ex-Googlers.

The battle is over how people spend time on the Web – on Google sites such as YouTube, Gmail and Google News, or on Facebook? Google’s websites in October lured 181 million unique visitors, according to comScore, good for the No. 1 ranking in the country. Facebook was fourth at 151 million, behind Yahoo and Microsoft but closing quickly. While more people visit Google, people are spending more time on Facebook than on Google’s sites. Think of how much time you waste playing Scrabble or scouring your friends’ profiles for the latest baby photos.

With every click on Google or alternatively on Facebook, the companies get a chance to grab a bigger slice of the $26 billion annual pie for online advertising. Google for now is king of search ads, but Facebook is responsible for one out of every four graphical display ads across the Web. Google’s share is 2.7% in display ads.

Mobile advertising and the local arena are the next battle fronts. Research firm Borrell Associates estimates U.S. local businesses will spend $13.6 billion this year on online ads. Facebook encourages local businesses to set up Facebook pages and target ads – for example, wedding photographers can direct ads at young women who recently changed their relationship status on Facebook to “engaged.” Groupon and its ties with merchants may give Google a leg up with local businesses, at least until the next round of armaments.

“We believe that Google and Facebook will be battling for Web supremacy for years to come,” Wedbush said in a research note this week. “The purchase of Groupon would be another major piece of artillery for Google to use in this battle.”

The Google-Facebook war at its core isn’t about ad money, eyeballs or the rights to the King of Silicon Valley throne. It’s about bytes. The magic of Google’s $180 billion market value is its mastery of the reams of information about what people are looking for across the Web. The more clicks Google gets on its blue links, the smarter and more powerful the Google machine becomes. Facebook’s machine is grabbing at user data directly –- by inducing people to list their friends, hobbies, favorite movies and hometowns.

There’s even a precedent for Google using acquisitions as battle gear. Last year, Google announced a deal for AdMob, to help seed ads on cell phones and other mobile devices. That deal, of course, was a broadside against Google’s other BFFN (Best Friend Forever. Not): Apple.

http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2010/11/30/groupon-more-anti-facebook-armor-for-google/

How to Activate Find My iPhone for iOS 4

Apple last week rolled out a major update for its mobile operating system iOS 4, and among the new features is a nifty free tool: Find My iPhone.

As its name suggests, Find My iPhone is a tracking feature to locate a missing iPhone 4, iPad or fourth-generation iPod Touch. (Only the latest models get the free feature.) If you’ve dropped your iDevice in a cab, or if someone’s stolen it, you can hop on a computer to follow the GPS coordinates of the iPhone on a Google map (see above).

Or, if you’re just absent-minded like me and you misplace your iPhone as often as you lose your keys, you can use your computer to trigger a beeping sound to help you find it. It should be loud enough to hear from under a couch cushion. (You’ll never have to bug a friend to call your phone again.)

If you do indeed think your iPhone is in the hands of a thief, you can use Find My iPhone to remotely lock the device or wipe the data. Do note, however, that if you wipe the device, you won’t be able to track it anymore (hap tip to @shacker for catching that). Also, a clever thief could just remove the SIM card, and you wouldn’t be able to track or wipe the phone.

Of the many new features in iOS 4.2.1, I found this one to be one of the sweetest bonuses. Find My iPhone originally was only available as part of a MobileMe subscription, which costs $100 per year. Making it free was a nice move on Apple’s part: An iPhone can potentially contain a treasure trove of personal information, so losing one is a big deal.

You need to activate Find My iPhone before you lose your phone, so do it now. Since the steps to turn this useful feature on aren’t immediately obvious, here’s how to do it:

1. Make sure you have the latest iOS update (iOS 4.2.1) installed. Plug in your iPhone and click “Check for updates” in iTunes to get the software.

2. With iOS 4.2.1 installed, tap the Settings app on your iPhone. Then tap “Mail, Contacts, Calendars” and “Add Account.” Then choose MobileMe.

3. In the MobileMe account menu, enter your iTunes or Apple ID and password (i.e., the login you use to buy iTunes media on the iPhone).

4. The “Find My iPhone” option should appear. Slide it to “ON” to activate it.”

And you’re done! From here on, you can hop on a computer and enter www.me.com in a web browser. Then enter the same login credentials you used to register for Find My iPhone, and you’ll immediately get a GPS reading of the phone, along with a simple menu of buttons allowing you to lock, wipe, or send a message or sound to the iPhone.

Update: Corrected an error that stated MobileMe costs $10 per month. In actuality, it costs $100 per year.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/11/find-my-iphone/

What to Expect From the Apple iPhone 5 (or 4G)

Don't you sometimes feel that changes in technology are too sudden? People spend a bomb on cellphones today, which look passe in a couple of years (in some cases, even months), with phones with better features selling for a lower price.

Many phone manufacturers make a living putting a dizzying array of models on the shelves (Yes Nokia, especially you) with a wide price range that will appeal to the pauper, the rich man and everybody in between. Apple plays their game differently, they just rely on two versions of the iPhone; the current generation and the one before that.

For example: Since the iPhone 4 launched the iPhone 3GS is sold for a cheaper price, while the iPhone 3G has ceased to exist. Every year they keep updating the iPhone with newer hardware and/or iOS software releases. While having just two relatively expensive models does put off people, who don't want to/can't pay the premium for a phone, when you consider the iPhones flying off the shelves year after year, it seems that many don't mind the high price.

The iPhone 4 was a radical change from the 3GS. It added many features like the ultra-crisp Retina display, faster processor, front-facing video-call camera and a 5 megapixel sensor at the rear with 720p HD video recording. Yes, the feature list honestly doesn't sound out of this planet, as Android phones had all these things months before its launch. But for existing iPhone users, who've committed themselves to the Apple ecosystem, the iPhone 4 did give many reasons for them to upgrade.

And so we can only expect this yearly cycle of innovation to continue. June 2010 will bring the next iPhone and June 2011 will bring yet another new iPhone. I know it's a little too early to start speculating what the future versions of the iPhone will do, given that people have just settled down after the antenna design issue of the iPhone 4. I believe there are five things that ought to surface in the years to come.

http://www.techtree.com/India/Features/What_to_Expect_From_the_Apple_iPhone_5_or_4G/551-113472-899-1.html

Murdoch plots dedicated iPad newspaper

News Corporation is launching a dedicated newspaper for Apple's iPad, according to reports.

Called The Daily, the operation will be based in Manhattan, employe around 100 staff, and launch early next year according to a predictably sniffy report from rival New York Times.

It's the first new product for the iPad from a major publisher. Despite the willingness of punters to pay for content via Apple gear - something the web has struggled to achieve in 15 years - publishers still view the iChannel as a way of promoting subscriptions to existing paper products, or delivering paper content electronically.

That's all quite rational - but what do the economics of an iPad-only bundle look like?

Reports suggest the price will be 99c a week, or $50 a year. Apple has sold 7.5 million iPads since launch, and was aiming for five million in the first full quarter since launch, but fell short. Still, with 28 per cent quarterly growth, it's impressive for a version 1.0 product that's still a premium consumer item.

iSuppli estimates that if we wind forward two years, there'll be a hundred million iPads around - and surely even more if Apple creates cheaper Nano-style fondleslabs.

Given the low price, and the size of the iPad market, the task looks daunting. The Daily would require over two million subscribers worth $50 a year to cover costs - and that's before Apple takes its cut. No daily newspaper can boast anything like that - but magazines are perhaps a better comparison than dailies here. (The Economist describes itself as a weekly newspaper.)

Newsweek and Time snag over three million paying punters a week and the New Yorker around one million. And if The Smithsonian magazine can snare two million customers, then surely The Daily must be in with a shout.

But it has to be distinctive, and that's the secret of the most successful British paper-gone-digital, the Daily Mail, which runs its web operation as a low overhead afterthought. The Mail's owners Associated Newspapers are confident that the web version doesn't cannibalise the paper version - yet it also draws a rubbernecking audience who wouldn't ever buy it for fear of being called politically incorrect. I daresay a fair few are even Radio 4 listeners. An enviable formula, for sure, but most people overlook the "low overhead" part.

One spectre haunting News Corp's iPad operation is that of the multimedia failures of the mid-90s, when publishers merely thought that adding a bit of video to some text would amaze the punters. It was vanity publishing, and was rapidly made redundant when the web took off.

Still, at least Murdoch has a strategy - and is thinking like a businessman. Neither can be said for The Guardian, alas.

"As for digital, I am with the utopians," said editor Alan Rusbridger in a rambling 6,000 word speech last week. Rusbridger mentioned Twitter 31 times, but offered no strategy on how to stem group losses running at around £470,000 a day.

Apart from a brief period in the mid-Noughties when News Corp appeared to drink the Kumbaya Kool Aid of Web 2.0, Murdoch has been leery of the promises of the snake oil crowd. And rightly so, it now seems. ®

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/22/murdoch_ipad_newspaper/