(Reuters) – Attorneys for two Ohio teenage football players accused of raping a 16-year-old student have asked that the trial be moved because potential witnesses are afraid to come forward in defense of the boys, one of the lawyers said on Monday.
Walter Madison, the attorney for one of the accused rapists, Ma’lik Richmon, said social media efforts to bring the alleged rape into the national spotlight have led to an atmosphere of intimidation and coercion.
“This has a chilling effect on witnesses who could come forward to be part of this process so my client can get a fair and full proceeding,” he told Reuters. “So, we’re left without the opportunity to make our case. That’s pretty serious.”
Richmond and Trenton Mays, both 16 and members of the Steubenville High School football team, are charged with raping a 16-year-old fellow student at a party last August.
The two students are set to be tried as juveniles in February in Steubenville, a city of 19,000 about 40 miles west of Pittsburgh.
Madison said his client’s mother has had to change her cell phone number multiple times due to threats and harassment.
Last week, the online activist group Anonymous made public a picture allegedly of the rape victim, being carried by her wrists and ankles by two young men, and of a video that showed several other young men joking about an alleged assault.
Madison said that Richmond is not seen in the video.
A county sheriff under fire for how he has handled the high school rape investigation faced down a crowd of protestors on Saturday and said no new charges will be brought against anyone involved in the case.
Activists say there had been a cover-up by local officials to protect the integrity of the high school’s football program.
Meanwhile, a petition to the White House calling for the two rape suspects to be tried as adults reached 25,000 signatures Monday, the threshold required to receive a response from the Obama Administration.
Moving the case to the adult court system would allow for a jury trial and a more severe penalty, the petition says.
“This is a serious offense and this needs to be an example for everyone that this type of behavior should not, and will not be tolerated in our society,” it says.
The petition, created December 25, more than doubled its number of supporters overnight. It had 11,000 signatures on Sunday.
It was submitted to the White House through its online petition website, We The People. Now that it has the required 25,000 signatures, the Obama Administration will give an official statement at some point in the future. The petition has no legal impact.
(Editing by Paul Thomasch and Andrew Hay)
Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Walt Disney toys are sold around the world. Now, children can find them in the cloud as well.
The media giant is teaming up with toy company JAKKS Pacific and Patrick Soon-Shiong, Los Angeles’ wealthiest person, on a new line of toys – with a nifty technological twist designed to link the goodies that kids lug home from the store with Disney’s stable of well-known animated characters.
“DreamPlay“, developed by Soon-Shiong’s NantWorks company, and JAKKS works via an app that can be downloaded on Apple Inc devices like the iPad, or smartphones and tablets running Google Inc Android software. When a device’s camera is trained on any toy specifically designed to work with DreamPlay, it triggers one of thousands of preset animations that appear on the device’s screen and seem to be unfolding in the real world.
With viewers’ eyes locked on the tablet or smartphone screen, fairies appear to glide in and out of buildings, animated critters start playing musical instruments, mythical characters prance on a toy piano’s keyboard.
Disney, which licensed its characters to DreamPlay, and its partners hope that children will take to the new approach, which is intended to extend and expand the life of the toy. But it remains to be seen if the concept will prove to be more than a novelty, and be able to arrest a child’s infamously short attention span.
The three will demo their concept on Tuesday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, but Reuters got a sneak peak at the technology on Monday.
In a showroom in the 20th floor of a Santa Monica, Calif. building, visitors to JAKKS’ demonstration are treated to an animated version of Sebastian – the red Jamaican crab from Disney’s “Little Mermaid” movie – who pops up onscreen on an iPad seconds after the tablet’s camera is trained on a real-life set of toy bongo drums.
The animated crab pounces on the drums and proceeds to bang out a calypso song onscreen, with both Sebastian and the physical drum set appearing together as if the two shared the same cartoon.
REAL, VIRTUAL INTERACTION
DreamPlay allows not just Sebastian, but also Tinker Bell and a host of other well-loved Disney characters to “interact” virtually with specially made toys via image-recognition software. The software was developed by Soon-Shiong, a former cancer surgeon who created drugs to fight diabetes and breast cancer and then sold the companies that produced them for $ 8.6 billion.
Soon-Shiong teamed with JAKKS, a $ 678 million-a-year toy maker and licensee of toys based on the Princess line of dolls, Marvel action figures and other Disney toys, among others.
The technology works via the “cloud” – images and video clips stored on remote servers that are streamed to kids’ mobiles when the app recognizes a particular item.
“It’s a tremendous way to combine great technology and Disney’s magical story telling to extend the time a child can play with a toy,” said Bob Chapek, president of Disney’s consumer products unit. “Kids find out that playing with their toy doesn’t end when they get it home.”
Since taking over in 2011, Chapek has repositioned Disney’s consumer product unit to expand its use of technology with its toys. DreamPlay is the first of what Chapek says are other products that will twin technology with familiar Disney toys, although he won’t name them.
Down the road, Disney may explore new business models, including selling subscriptions to content created specifically to be used with a particular toy, said Chapek.
The market is hardly certain for a product that requires a child to hold up a phone or tablet, and peer through it to play with a toy that’s stationary. Will children want to see Rapunzel endlessly dancing on the keys of a piano or Rosetta, a fairy from Disney’s “Tinker Bell” movies, fly in and out of a cottage?
“The technology may be great, but no one has proven to me yet that a kid will sit in front of an iPhone or iPad instead of playing with a toy that’s right in front of him,” said Sean McGowan, a toy analyst with Needham & Co who downgraded JAKKS to hold in September along with other toy companies, and then downgraded JAKKS to underperform in October.
JAKKS intends to begin selling DreamPlay versions of toys from the Disney Princess line in October. It will then expand its offerings next year, with international sales starting in 2014, said Stephen Berman, JAKKS President and CEO.
DreamPlay toys will be “a couple of dollars” costlier than the regular version, he says.
Target stores and Toys R Us are among the U.S. retailers who will carry the DreamPlay line, Berman says. Top-Toy, the giant Nordic retailer, has also signed on, while Beijing Hualian Group, which operates supermarkets and department stores across China, is coming onboard as well.
“Kids don’t own iPhones or iPads but they all know how to use them,” says Berman. “Kids have so much more imagination than we do. Imagine recording a bunch of the videos and giving the kid an iPad to play with them on a trip to see the grandparents.”
JAKKS will ramp up marketing for the DreamPlay line, said Berman. DreamPlay toys will be prominently displayed at all the partner-retailers, he added, and shoppers will be encouraged to use their smartphones to view them.
Those that aim smartphones at a boxed Tinker Bell, for instance, may get a start as the fairy from “Peter Pan” literally soars out of the box, leaving an empty package behind.
“Technology can help people live better, work better, play better,” said Soon-Shiong as he showed off the line of toys. “This is the way they will play better.”
(Reporting By Ronald Grover; Edited By Edwin Chan)
Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News
KUWAIT CITY (AP) — A Kuwait newspaper says an online journalist has been sentenced to two years in prison for posts deemed “insulting” to the Gulf nation’s ruler — the second such ruling this week.
The decision reflects a widening social media crackdown across the Gulf Arab states to quell perceived political dissent.
Kuwait’s pro-government Al Watan newspaper reported Monday that Ayyad al-Harbi, a journalist at news website Sabr, was charged with posting Twitter messages considered offensive to the nation’s Western-allied emir. No other details were given.
Kuwait, which hosts thousands of U.S. troops, has been gripped by months of political unrest led by anti-government groups, including Islamist factions.
On Sunday, Kuwaiti media said a social media activist also has received a two-year prison term for Twitter posts that allegedly insulted the emir.
Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Research In Motion (RIMM) on Thursday took the wraps off a brand new BlackBerry smartphone — but it’s not the kind of smartphone BlackBerry fans have been waiting more than a year for. Instead, it’s a low-end BlackBerry Curve 9315 that will launch later this month on T-Mobile. The phone features the BlackBerry 7.1 operating system, a 3.2-megapixel camera, microSD memory expansion and a full QWERTY keyboard, and it will launch on January 23rd… just seven days before RIM unveils its first BlackBerry 10 phones. Pre-sales for the Curve 9315 begin on January 16th and the phone will cost $ 49.99 out of pocket plus a $ 10 payment each month as part of Equipment Installment Plan. T-Mobile’s full press release follows below.
[More from BGR: ‘iPhone 5S’ to reportedly launch by June with multiple color options and two different display sizes]
BlackBerry Curve 9315 Smartphone Introduced By T-Mobile and RIM
[More from BGR: RIM teases BlackBerry 10 launch with image of first BB10 smartphone]
T-Mobile’s most affordable BlackBerry smartphone provides productivity tools and features to keep customers connected
BELLEVUE, Wash. and WATERLOO, ON – Jan. 3, 2013 – T-Mobile USA, Inc. and Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ: RIMM; TSX: RIM) today announced the most affordable BlackBerry® smartphone on T-Mobile’s nationwide network – the BlackBerry® Curve™ 9315. Powered by the BlackBerry® 7.1 operating system with 3G connectivity, the sleek new smartphone is easy-to-use and provides tools that enable customers to stay connected to the people and information that matter most.
“At T-Mobile, our goal is to delight customers. The new BlackBerry Curve 9315 will delight customers with unprecedented value while also allowing them to combine their mobile business and personal use in one great device,” said Brad Duea, senior vice president of product management at T-Mobile. “The Curve 9315 is the most affordable BlackBerry smartphone on our nationwide network and provides our customers with a wide variety of productivity and social features to keep them connected and make their mobile lives easier.”
“We’re pleased to work with T-Mobile to bring the BlackBerry Curve 9315 to customers,” said Richard Piasentin, managing director for the U.S. at Research In Motion. “The Curve 9315 is designed to make it incredibly easy to stay connected with friends, family and coworkers and will be popular with customers upgrading to a smartphone for the first time, as well as existing Curve customers looking for a step up in speed and functionality.”
Combining an intuitive interface with a QWERTY keyboard, the BlackBerry Curve 9315 features built-in Wi-Fi® connectivity for voice and data, enabling customers to access the information they need when and where they need it, and Wi-Fi calling, allowing calls and messages over an available Wi-Fi network. With a dedicated BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM™) key, preloaded apps for Facebook® and Twitter® and the Social Feeds 2.0 app, customers can easily interact with their friends, coworkers and social networks whether it’s instant messaging, posting or tweeting.
The new BlackBerry Curve 9315 offers a 3.2-megapixel camera with LED flash and digital zoom as well as video recording capabilities. Customers also have the ability to geo-tag the location of their pictures by utilizing the smartphone’s built-in GPS. In addition, the smartphone features a microSD card slot for up to 32GB of additional media storage and a built-in FM radio letting customers tune in to local FM stations. With the BlackBerry App World™ storefront, customers have exclusive access to a wide range of apps, allowing them to enhance their smartphone experience with entertainment, personalization and productivity apps of their choosing.
The BlackBerry Curve 9315 will be available in an exclusive pre-sale for T-Mobile business customers beginning January 16 and is expected to be available in T-Mobile retail stores, via http://www.T-Mobile.com, and with select dealers and national retailers beginning January 23, 2013. For well-qualified customers, the Curve 9315 will require a $ 49.99 out-of-pocket down payment and 20 equal monthly payments of $ 10 per month via T-Mobile’s Equipment Installment Plan (EIP)1, with a two-year service agreement and qualifying T-Mobile Value voice and data plan. Customers may also purchase the Curve 9315 for $ 49.99 after a $ 50 mail-in rebate card, with a two-year service agreement and qualifying T-Mobile Classic voice and data plan.2
This article was originally published by BGR
Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “Pawn Stars” fans, rejoice; you’ll now be able to catch Big Hoss and Chumley on Amazon Prime.
Amazon announced Friday that it has struck a licensing deal with A+E Networks to carry A&E, bio, History and Lifetime programs on its premium Prime Instant Video service. The deal includes prior seasons of programs such as “Pawn Stars,” “Storage Wars” and “Dance Moms.”
Amazon Prime, which allows subscribers to stream videos through a variety of gadgets, costs $ 79 a year.
The pact between Amazon and A+E Networks comes a few months after rival streaming service Netflix decided to drop all but about 300 hours of A+E programming. Netflix, which had been seeking exclusivity from A+E for its content, opted not to renew its agreement with the company.
Brad Beale, Amazon’s director of digital video content acquisition, said that Amazon has more than doubled the amount of content for Amazon Prime customers.
“We remain focused on adding TV episodes and movies to Prime Instant Video that we think our customers will enjoy,” Beale said. “A+E Networks has some of the most popular shows on television and we know our customers will love streaming the A+E content with Prime Instant Video.”
Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News
While he isn’t currently available for promotional work, businesses would have the most success on social media with President Barack Obama endorsing their goods and services, new research shows.
A study by social marketing platform SocialToaster revealed that Obama is considered the most influential celebrity on social media. Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Ashton Kutcher and Anderson Cooper followed the president on the rankings of social influencers.
On the flip side, the research found that former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney was the least influential celebrity on social media, finishing just below Madonna, Kanye West and Sean Hannity.
While celebrities might be influential on social media in some aspects, it’s those closest to us who make the largest impact when it comes to the important issues. Nearly all of the social media users surveyed agreed that a social media post from a close friend or family member was most likely to influence them on important subjects, with politicians and athletes the least likely to influence them.
“While it was no surprise that in this election year Barack Obama would be ranked the most influential person in social media, it was surprising to us that Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga would beat Madonna and Kanye West,” said Brian Razzaque, CEO of SocialToaster. “We were also surprised to see that friends had more pull than family when it came to influencing the sharing of social media content.”
Regardless of whom it comes from, there are some posts that will quickly result in an unfollowing, the study discovered. Nearly three-quarters of those surveyed said a racist post would cause them to immediately unfollow someone on social media. Other types of posts that result in a loss of followers include sexism, pornography, repetitive, overly personal posts and those that use poor grammar.
The researcher was based on surveys of 3,000 SocialToaster Super Fans, which consist of social media experts and professionals, many of whom work with some of the nation’s leading brands. The experts range from those who work in the entertainment industry who represent numerous television shows and movies to those who work in professional sports, including the Baltimore Ravens and the Detroit Pistons.
This story was provided by BusinessNewsDaily, a sister site to LiveScience. Follow Chad Brooks on Twitter @cbrooks76 or BusinessNewsDaily @BNDarticles. We’re also on Facebook & Google+.
Copyright 2012 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News
(Reuters) – Apple Inc has started testing a new iPhone and the next version of its iOS software, news website The Next Web reported.
Apple shares were up 2.6 percent at $ 546.06 in premarket trading. The stock closed at $ 532.17 on the Nasdaq on Monday.
Application developers have found in their app usage logs references to a new iPhone identifier, iPhone 6.1, running iOS 7 operating system, the website reported. (http://r.reuters.com/fyd94t)
Apple‘s iPhone 5 bears the identifiers “iPhone 5.1″ and “iPhone 5.2″ and is powered by iOS 6 operating system.
Developer logs show that the app requests originate from an internet address on Apple’s Cupertino campus, suggesting that Apple engineers are testing compatibility for some of the popular apps, the website said.
“Although OS and device data can be faked, the unique IP footprint leading back to Apple’s Cupertino campus leads us to believe this is not one of those attempts,” the website said.
Apple launched iPhone 5 in September and it has been reported that the new iPhone will be released in the middle of 2013.
(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Bangalore)
Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Back in July, we covered how social media would be critical to the success of the 2012 Paralympic Games. The Paralympics ended in September, but the International Paralympic Committee is still using the web to shine a light on unheralded athletes and tell stories of remarkable inspiration.
[More from Mashable: Watch the Scariest Skiing Lesson of All Time]
The committee revealed its top moment of 2012 in a video posted to YouTube on Sunday. It profiles Italian cyclist Alex Zanardi winning gold in London after losing his legs in an auto racing accident in 2001. The image of a triumphant Zanardi lifting his hand-cycling tricycle above his head with one arm post-race is nothing short of astounding.
[More from Mashable: NBA Star’s Kick to the Groin Sparks Online Debate]
For a longer look at Zanardi’s amazing achievement and to relive one of 2012′s sweetest sports moments, watch the full video above.
BONUS: 2012′s best sports social media moments
As New England Patriot Devin McCourty took on the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLVI, his followers were still able to receive real-time updates from his social feeds. But he wasn’t sneaking tweets between plays or during timeouts. Devin and twin brother Jason, who plays for the Tennessee Titans, share their Twitter and Facebook accounts. The Super Bowl showcased one of the more creative approaches to social media in the sports world.
Image courtesy of Devin and Jason McCourty’s Instagram.
Click here to view this gallery.
Thumbnail image credit Getty Images/AFP/Leon Neal
This story originally published on Mashable here.
Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Samsung (005930) is the world’s top Android smartphone vendor by a staggering margin. Aside from LG (066570), which managed a small $ 20 million profit from its mobile division last quarter, no other global Android vendor can figure out how to make money selling Android phones. Meanwhile, Samsung posted a $ 6 billion profit on $ 47.6 billion in sales in the third quarter, thanks largely to record smartphone shipments and a massive marketing budget. Even as industry watchers turn sour on Apple, Samsung is seen steamrolling into 2013 and its stock is up nearly 50% on the year while Apple (AAPL) shares continue to fall from a record high hit in September. As unstoppable as Samsung appears right now, one key question remains: Is Samsung driving Android’s success or is Android driving Samsung’s success? Starting in 2013, we may finally begin to find out.
[More from BGR: Unreleased ‘BlackBerry X10′ QWERTY phone appears again in new photos]
Earlier this year, BGR wrote about Samsung’s effort to look beyond Android. Even with its own UI and application suite — and even with its own content services — Samsung will always rely on Google (GOOG) if it continues to base its devices on Google’s latest Android builds.
[More from BGR: RIM teases BlackBerry 10 launch with image of first BB10 smartphone]
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it means Samsung will never truly control the end-to-end experience on its products. It also means Samsung will never truly own its smartphones and tablets. Instead, Samsung’s devices will deliver an experience that is an amalgamation of Google’s vision and its own.
But there are alternative options. One example is the path Amazon (AMZN) has taken. Amazon let Google do the grunt work and then took its open-source Android OS and built its own software and service layer on top. Kindle Fire users don’t sit around waiting for Android updates — many of them don’t even know they’re using an Android-powered tablet.
Samsung could do the same thing, but there is a great deal of prep work that would need to be done first. Amazon’s efforts were so successful (depending on your measure of success) because the company already had a massive ecosystem in place before it even launched its first device. Streaming movies and TV shows, eBooks, retail shopping and a stocked application store were all available on the Kindle Fire from day one.
Samsung doesn’t have this luxury. Yet.
Samsung could also take ownership of a new OS, and Tizen may or may not end up being that OS. Samsung is co-developing the new Linux-based mobile platform with Intel (INTC) and others, and a new rumor from Japan’s The Daily Yomiuri suggests Samsung plans to launch its first Tizen phone in 2013. “Samsung will probably begin selling the [Tizen] smartphones next year and they are likely to be released in Japan and other countries at around the same time,” the site’s sources claim.
This will be a slow process. If Samsung follows the same path it took with Bada, Samsung’s earlier Linux-based OS that was folded into the Tizen project, things will start out slow as Samsung launches regional devices that are restricted to a few Eastern markets. Testing the waters before dumping serious marketing dollars into the project isn’t a bad idea, especially considering the battle at the bottom of the smartphone OS food chain that will already be taking place in 2013.
But one thing is clear: Samsung is looking to broaden its strategy and move beyond a point where it relies entirely on another company for its smartphone software.
This article was originally published by BGR
Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Apple’s (AAPL) share of the global tablet market is in decline now that low-cost Android slates are proliferating, but the iPad still appears to be the most used tablet by a huge margin. Ad firm Chitika regularly monitors tablet traffic in the United States and Canada and in its latest report, Apple’s iPad was responsible for almost 90% of all tablet traffic across the company’s massive network.
[More from BGR: Samsung looks to address its biggest weakness in 2013]
Using a sample of tens of millions of impressions served to tablets between December 8th and December 14th this year, Chitika determined that various iPad models collectively accounted for 87% of tablet traffic in North America. That figure is down a point from the prior month but still represents a commanding lead in the space.
[More from BGR: New purported BlackBerry Z10 specs emerge: 1.5GHz processor, 2GB RAM, 8MP camera]
The next closest device line, Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle Fire tablet family, had a 4.25% share of tablet traffic during that period, up from 3.57% in November. Samsung’s (005930) Galaxy tablets made up 2.65% of traffic, up from 2.36%, and Google’s (GOOG) Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 tablets combined to account for 1.06% of tablet traffic in early December.
“Despite these gains by some of the bigger players in the tablet marketplace, there has been a negligible impact to Apple’s dominant usage share,” Chitika wrote in a post on its blog.
This article was originally published by BGR
Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Benedict, white-haired, 85, and a neophyte to social media site Twitter, has beaten out 18-year old heartthrob Justin Bieber to set a percentage record for re-tweeting by his followers, the Vatican said on Thursday.
The Vatican newspaper said that as of noon Italian time on Thursday the pope had 2.1 million followers on Twitter, eight days after his first tweet was sent.
While Canadian singer-songwriter Bieber has roughly 15 times as many followers – 31.7 million – the Vatican newspaper said Benedict had beaten Bieber on re-tweets.
It said about 50 percent of the pope’s followers had re-tweeted his first tweet on December 12 while only 0.7 percent of Bieber’s followers had re-tweeted one of the singer’s most popular tweets on September 26, when he commented on the death by cancer of a six-year-old fan.
The Vatican said this was part of a wider trend in which people were looking for more spiritual content.
The pope already tweets in English, German, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish and Arabic. The newspaper said he will start tweeting in Latin and Chinese soon.
(Reporting By Philip Pullella, editing by Paul Casciato)
Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News
NEW YORK (AP) — Shares of Blackberry maker Research in Motion slumped more than 16 percent Friday with future revenue coming into question and a declining number of subscribers.
RIM’s stock jumped initially Thursday when the Canadian company released better-than-expected third-quarter results and a stronger cash position.
Shares reversed course during a conference call later, when executives said that the company won’t generate as much revenue from telecommunications carriers once it releases the new BlackBerry 10.
RIM’s stock had been on a three-month rally in which the stock more than doubled from levels not previously seen since 2003.
“Despite a solid quarter, the stock is trading down due to the introduction of a lower enterprise service tier and fears that RIM will not receive monthly services revenues for consumer BB10 subscribers,” said Jefferies analyst Peter Misek. He thinks RIM has offered carriers a lower-priced option in exchange for a bigger purchase commitment for the new device. He kept his “Hold” rating.
Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu kept maintained a “Neutral” rating on the stock, but lowered his earnings estimates, saying he continued to be concerned about RIM’s ability to compete with Apple and Google.
Shares of Research in Motion Ltd. fell $ 2.29 to $ 11.83 in morning trading.
Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Shares of Facebook (FB) have begun to rebound since the company’s disastrous initial public offering this past May. After opening at $ 38 per share the company’s stock plummeted into the mid-20s over the summer months and eventually fell to a low of $ 17.55 in early September. Since then, however, Facebook shares have begun to bounce back after the company posted better-than-expected results in the third quarter. While Facebook stock is still down more than 25% on the year, it is rising steadily as analysts and investors become increasingly bullish about the company’s future as a leading advertising platform.
[More from BGR: BlackBerry 10 browser smokes iOS 6 and Windows Phone 8 in comparison test [video]]
According to a new report from eMarketer, Facebook is predicted to surpass Google (GOOG) in mobile display advertising in 2012. Google is expected to generate $ 339 million in mobile ad revenue this year, a significant increase from previous estimates of between $ 45 and $ 100 million. The research firm notes that Facebook is expected to capture an 18.4% share of the mobile display ad market in the U.S. this year, compared to Google’s 17% share, which is down from 23% in 2011.
[More from BGR: New iMac early adopters upset that they can’t run Boot Camp]
“Major ad publishers are strengthening their offerings much faster than previously expected,” said Clark Fredricksen, vice president of communications at eMarketer. “I don’t think anybody thought after the second quarter that Google and Facebook would be in position that they are now in the mobile ad marketplace.”
The company’s mobile ad revenue is expected to more than triple by 2014 when it will reach an estimated $ 1.2 billion. The firm predicts that Facebook and Google will continue to battle for the No.1 spot in the mobile ad market over the next few years. Facebook is expected to increase its lead to 25.2% in 2013, compared to Google’s 19.6% share. Google is estimated to bounce back in 2014, however, with a market leading 23.1% share, ahead of Facebook’s 22.7% share.
Despite the impressive numbers, eMarketer notes that mobile still represents a small slice of the total advertising market. In 2012, only 2.4% of total ad spending in the U.S. is expected to go towards mobile ads, but the market is expected to reach an 11% share by 2016 when it surpasses both radio and print spending.
This article was originally published by BGR
Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he is donating nearly $ 500 million in stock to a Silicon Valley charity with the aim of funding health and education issues.
Zuckerberg donated 18 million Facebook shares, valued at $ 498.8 million based on their Tuesday closing price. The beneficiary is the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a nonprofit that works with donors to allocate their gifts.
This is Zuckerberg’s largest donation to date. He pledged $ 100 million in Facebook stock to Newark, N.J., public schools in 2010, before his company went public earlier this year. Later in 2010, he joined Giving Pledge, an effort led by Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. CEO Warren Buffett to get the country’s richest people to donate most of their wealth. His wife, Priscilla Chan, joined with him.
In a Facebook post Tuesday, Zuckerberg, 28, said he’s “proud of the work” done by the foundation that his Newark donation launched, called Startup: Education, which has helped open charter schools, high schools and others.
With the latest contribution, he added, “we will look for areas in education and health to focus on next.” He did not give further details on what plans there may be for funds.
“Mark’s generous gift will change lives and inspire others in Silicon Valley and around the globe to give back and make the world a better place,” said Emmett D. Carson, CEO of the foundation.
Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News
(Reuters) – Clearwire Corp agreed to sell roughly half of the company for $ 2.2 billion to majority shareholder Sprint Nextel Corp, which would then have full ownership of spectrum that will help it offer high-speed wireless services.
The $ 2.97-per-share deal is only 7 cents per share higher than a bid many minority shareholders said was too low days before. Clearwire shares tumbled 12.2 percent to $ 2.96 in morning trading on Monday.
Sprint already owns slightly more than half of Clearwire. The company said owners of 13 percent of Clearwire shares – Comcast Corp, Intel Corp and Bright House Networks LLC – had agreed to vote for the deal.
But it was not immediately clear whether Sprint, the No. 3 U.S. wireless carrier, could win the backing of a majority of Clearwire’s minority shareholders, which it needs to take control.
“This is not going to be popular with the minority shareholders,” said Davidson & Co analyst Donna Jaegers.
But Clearwire’s top executive told analysts on a Monday call that the company had little alternative.
“Despite our efforts we have been unable to secure new partnerships,” said Clearwire Chief Executive Officer Erik Prusch. “Our existing governance agreements prevented us from offering third parties the governance rights they desired in a partnership.”
Shareholders with more than 13 percent of Clearwire shares said last week that they were not happy with the $ 2.90-per-share offer, and some have said Sprint should offer as much as $ 5 per share.
Crest Financial, which owns more than 3 percent of Clearwire, recently filed a lawsuit to stop the company from selling itself to Sprint.
After the deal was announced on Monday, Crest said it had amended the lawsuit to make it a class action.
Another shareholder, Mount Kellett, said last week that the $ 2.90-a-share deal “grossly” undervalued Clearwire.
Clearwire, which also counts Sprint as its biggest customer, has been seeking financing for a high-speed wireless network upgrade and to keep itself afloat.
While some analysts and shareholders said Clearwire did not need to rush into a sale to Sprint, others have said that move would be its best hope for survival.
Sprint, whose shares rose 1 percent to $ 5.61 on Monday, needs Clearwire’s substantial spectrum to better arm itself against larger rivals Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc.
Reuters reported last week that Japan’s Softbank Corp, which recently struck a deal to buy 70 percent of Sprint, would not consent to a bid of more than $ 2.97 per share.
Softbank said on Monday that it supported the deal.
(Reporting by Sinead Carew in New York and Sayantani Ghosh in Bangalore; Editing by Rodney Joyce, Sriraj Kalluvila and Lisa Von Ahn)
Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News
This mind-blowing video comes from South Dakota. Its creator uses the show’s publicity to help raise money for the Make-a-Wish Foundation.
Click here to view this gallery.
[More from Mashable: 63 Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed]
The winter celebration of the evergreen tree is not a modern tradition — it extends back to pre-Christian times and to cultures all over the world.
Maybe your holiday tradition involves stringing thousands of lights across your property for a majestic arrangement. Or perhaps your family just tours the neighborhood to see everyone else’s exhibits. Either way, YouTube is here to provide some sensational seasonal light shows for your viewing and listening pleasure, from festive homes all across the country.
[More from Mashable: 10 Adorable Dog Outfits for the Holidays]
Enjoy these creative displays, and maybe draw a little inspiration for next year’s decorations. If you’re worried about complexity, learn to do it yourself.
Have you seen an unforgettable holiday display we forgot to include? In the spirit of giving, let us know about it in the comments section below.
This story originally published on Mashable here.
Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Discount retailer Lidl faces a 200,000-euro ($ 260,000) Christmas dinner bill after an offer of chicken vol-au-vents and ice cream cake for the poor went viral.
The supermarket launched a Twitter campaign in Belgium on Monday, saying it would hand out five four-course Christmas dinners to food banks for each tweet on a hash tag.
Lidl had expected to hand out about 1,000 of the 20-euro dinner packs, consisting of tomato soup, vol-au-vents with chips, an ice-cream cake and chocolates, a spokesman for the German-based company’s Belgium unit said on Wednesday.
But local newspapers wrote about the offer and people retweeted using the hash tag – #luxevooriedereen, Dutch for “luxury for everyone”.
By the end of the 24-hour campaign, 1,500 people had tweeted, meaning Lidl has to deliver 7,500 dinners. That sparked reports the supermarket had been caught out by its campaign.
To quash such talk, Lidl rounded up the number of dinners to 10,000, and branded the campaign a success.
Lidl said it had not yet decided whether to repeat the exercise next year.
“We’ve learnt quite a few lessons over the past 48 hours, to say the least,” the spokesman said.
($ 1 = 0.7693 euros)
(Reporting By Ben Deighton. Editing By Sebastian Moffett.)
Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The world’s attention wavered between the tragic and the silly in 2012, and along the way, Web surfers searched in huge numbers to find out about a royal princess, the latest iPad, and a record-breaking skydiver.
Whitney Houston was the “top trending” search of the year, according to Google Inc.’s year-end “zeitgeist” report. Google‘s 12th annual roundup is “an in-depth look at the spirit of the times as seen through the billions of searches on Google over the past year,” the company said in a blog post Wednesday.
People around the globe searched en masse for news about Houston‘s accidental drowning in a bathtub just before she was to perform at a pre-Grammy Awards party in February.
Google defines topics as “trending” when they garner a high amount of traffic over a sustained period of time.
Korean rapper PSY’s “Gangnam Style” music video trotted into second spot, a testament to his self-deprecating giddy-up dance move. The video is approaching a billion views on YouTube.
Superstorm Sandy, the damaging storm that knocked out power and flooded parts of the East Coast in the midst of a U.S. presidential campaign, was third.
The next biggest trending searches globally were a pair of threes: the iPad 3 tablet from Apple Inc. and Diablo 3, a popular video game.
Rounding out the Top 10 were Kate Middleton, who made news with scandalous photos and a royal pregnancy; the 2012 Olympics in London; Amanda Todd, a Canadian teen who was found dead of an apparent suicide in October after being bullied online; Michael Clarke Duncan, the “Green Mile” actor who died of a heart attack in September at age 54; and “BBB12,” the 12th edition of “Big Brother Brasil,” a reality show featuring scantily clad men and women living together.
Some trending people, according to Google, were:
— Felix Baumgartner, an Austrian skydiver who became the first to break the sound barrier without a vehicle with a 24-mile plummet from Earth’s stratosphere;
— Jeremy Lin, the undrafted NBA star who exploded off the New York Knicks bench and sparked a wave of “Linsanity”;
— Morgan Freeman, the actor whose untimely death turned out not to be true.
The Internet also continued its rise as a popular tool for spreading addictive ideas and phrases known as “memes.” Remember LOL? If you don’t know what it means by now, someone may “Laugh Out Loud” at you.
This year, Facebook said its top memes included “TBH (To Be Honest),” ”YOLO (You Only Live Once),” ”SMH (Shake My Head).” Thanks to an endlessly fascinating U.S. presidential campaign, “Big Bird” made the list after Republican candidate Mitt Romney said he might consider cutting some funds for public broadcasting.
Yahoo said its own top-searched memes for the year included “Kony 2012,” a reference to the short film and campaign against Ugandan militia leader Joseph Kony; “stingray photobomb” for an unusual vacation snapshot that went viral; and “binders full of women,” another nod to Romney for his awkward description of his search for women cabinet members as Massachusetts’ governor.
And people were happy to pass on popular Twitter posts by retweeting them. According to Twitter, the year’s most popular retweets were President Barack Obama‘s “Four more years,” and Justin Bieber’s farewell to six-year-old fan Avalanna Routh, who died of a rare form of brain cancer: “RIP Avalanna. i love you”.
Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News
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