5 Tech Stories Worth Reading

Netflix Headed For A Brick Wall?
It was bound to happen, subscriber backlash over pricing, and recent news that major content providers are cutting ties with Netflix. Read more of the story here: http://thom.ws/mUNE5C

Is Steve Balmer Actually Surprised At The Crappy Windows Phone 7 Sales?
Steve, you have to actually build a brand, a community, and a solid app store before you can start to capture market share. Oh, and if you have to battle the retail sales folks for pushing people away from your product, you will have an even harder time selling your product. You have some serious holes in your plan. Read more here: http://thom.ws/qgZ7yI

MOG Launches Free Version Of Music Service
MOG announced today that they are offering an ad-supported free version of their music service. The interesting thing here is they are trying to gamify the service, giving users free music,  based on the amount of sharing, playlist creation, and the number of referrals to the service. This could be interesting. According to their press release "Tastemakers and influencers can easily get a lifetime of free on-demand music." Read more here: http://thom.ws/o4P0CC

Chegg Buys Zinch In A Move Towards A Social Education Platform
You may not have heard of either of these companies, but they are leaders in their own industries. Chegg is an online book rental service for college students, and Zinch is an online service that connects high school students with college recruiters. On the surface, this is an odd acquisition, but more and more companies are buying complimentary services and products to increase their over all sales. Read more here: http://thom.ws/nvLUNG

Samsung Wants To Own Your First, Second, And Third Screen
Samsung is making a push to build technology that directly competes with Apple and it's AirPlay technology. The company has had some success in the past, but this push could be fueled by the back and forth patent infringement claims made by both Apple and Samsung. Read more here: http://thom.ws/qZK9T4

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2011 Women Tech Award Recipients

Announcing the Women Tech Awards 2011 sponsored by the Women Tech Council. This years recipients are:

Courtney Doyle, Ph. D student, Robotics, College of Engineering - Student Award

Kate Maloney, CEO, CostumeCraze - Rising Star Award

Sarah B. Hiza, Senior Manager, Energetic Materials & Mechanical Testing, ATK - Technology Innovator Award

Jennifer Hwu, CEO, InnoSys - Technology Entrepreneur Award

Patricia Hall, Managing Director, Goldman Sachs and Co. - Technology Excellence Award

Shawn Adamson, Regional Vice President, Xo Communications - Technology Trailblazer Award

Susan Johnson, President and CEO, Futura Industries - Leadership Excellence Award

Congratulations to everyone.

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Can We Build Something Besides Social Software?

OK, I have to ask, have we, as a technology industry, boiled ourselves down to who can develop the most unique social network software? I mean, it's about all I see in the news anymore.

Even Salesforce, according to Robert Scoble, could go after a large part of the social sphere. Why would a company like Salesforce do that? Will that help me as a sales professional do a better job? As a business owner I would question that.

With quick wins, and superficial products, is anyone, any company, developing technology with substance?

Who's building killer educational software and getting recognized for it?

Who's building medical software to help us find cures and eliminate disease?

Who's building technology that helps us better design and implement green communities?

Who's building technology that helps us discover and tap into cheaper forms of energy?

Who's developing technology that will help us find more water sources and build better distribution systems?

With all the worlds resources, we are doing something more than building platforms to show ourselves off, right?

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New Amazon S3 Data Transfer Pricing

This is incredible. The price for transferring data into your S3 account is now FREE! Starting July 1, 2011. And now they have pricing for data storage in the Petabyte range. That just blows my mind.

New inbound data transfer price for all regions (effective July 1, 2011)

• $0.000 - all data transfer in

New data transfer price for US-Standard, US-West and Europe regions (effective July 1, 2011)

• $0.000 - first 1 GB / month data transfer out


• $0.120 per GB - up to 10 TB / month data transfer out (10 TB total)


• $0.090 per GB - next 40 TB / month data transfer out (50TB total)


• $0.070 per GB - next 100 TB / month data transfer out (150 TB total)


• $0.050 per GB - next 350 TB / month data transfer out (500 TB total)


• Contact us - next 524 TB / month data transfer out (1PB total)


• Contact us - next 4 PB / month data transfer out (5PB total)


• Contact us - data transfer out / month over 5 PB

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5 Tech Stories Worth Reading

1. Hauppauge Digital Broadway Box Streams Live TV To Your Mobile Devices
Hauppauge have this week launched their new Digital Broadway Box which has been designed to provide an easy way to watch live TV on your mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets whilst on your home network or while travelling. All you need is access to a Wifi connection.

2. Yahoo Is About To Spin Off A Billion Dollar Business
Yahoo is going to spin off its Hadoop unit this week, a Giga Om report says.

Hadoop is an open source software framework pioneered by Yahoo that's useful to handle tons of data in the cloud, which is exactly the type of thing that is really hot these days. We wrote previously about Yahoo's impending Hadoop spinoff; it's a potential billion-dollar business that's not in Yahoo's core, and so would be best spun off with Yahoo retaining a stake.

3. How NextDrop Is Using Cell Phones, Crowdsourcing To Get Water To The Thirsty
In cities where the water coming from pipes is anything but reliable, a new service alerts people so they don't have to sit at home all day waiting for the tap to turn on.

4. All-You-Can-Watch MoviePass Brings Netflix Model to Theaters
MoviePass, a new $50-per-month service for film fans, will let subscribers watch unlimited movies in theaters using their smartphones as tickets.

Using an HTML5 application (native smartphone apps coming soon), MoviePass will let users search for a film, find a local show time, check in to the theater and go straight to the ticket-taker.

5. Top 10 Reasons Geeks Should Love the Tour de France This Saturday, the 98th edition of the Tour de France starts in Province of Liège, kicking off three weeks of bicycle racing. Twenty-one teams of nine riders each will have to endure 3,400 kilometers of racing and 23 mountain passes to reach the finish line on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. It’s an event full of incredible human achievement and endurance. But it’s also full of geeky goodness. I decided to update my article from 2009 encouraging you to enjoy the race.

BONUS

6. Apple “steps up its game”, new iOS 5 firmware to block downgrades
Apple has started to introduce new security checks in its new iOS 5 software that could possibly restrict owners of an iPhone, iPad or iPod from downgrading the firmware on their devices, the iPhone Dev-Team has revealed.

7. Companies Are Erecting In-House Social Networks
What would Facebook look like without photos of drunken nights out and tales of misbehaving cats? It might look a lot like the internal social network at the offices of Nikon Instruments.

8. Take that Netflix, HBO Go app sees big growth 
If you don't believe cord cutting exists and that there isn't any competition between Netflix and cable programmers, then you needn't read on. If on the other hand, you at least see the potential for Netflix to some day snatch customers away from the cable guys, then take note: this weekend HBO expects to see the 3 millionth download of the HBO Go app, which debuted on May 2, a company spokesman told CNET. There are 28 million HBO subscribers in the United States so the 3 million downloads would indicate that roughly 10 percent of the company's audience has tried out the app.

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