Thursday, July 4, 2013

Finnish startup Adaia set to launch $1,300 Android phone in 2014

Finnish startup led by exNokia employee to launch expensive Android phones in 2014

Nokia's turmoils, and subsequent mass layoffs, have freed up plenty of smart people in the Finnish workforce to do their own thing. Rovio with Angry Birds, Jolla with Sailfish and now Adaia. The 16-person startup, led by former Nokia employee Heikki Sarajärvi, has revealed that it plans to launch a range of premium Android handsets at some point in 2014 in the US, UK and of course Finland. By premium, we're looking at anywhere between $1,300 to $6,500, in return for the promise of extra ruggedness and durability as well as potential satellite connectivity. Why Android? Heikki says "there is no alternative," something we assume Stephen Elop would strongly disagree with.

While there are no pictures to share today, local publication Digitoday got a chance to play with a prototype. They say the phone has a 4.8 inch screen and features the ability to hot-swap batteries without needing to turn the device off, though admittedly that hasn't been fully ironed out yet. One thing that might potentially turn some people off, aside from the exorbitant price, is the phone's weight -- final units are estimated to come in at between 240 and 250 grams, which is 60 grams heavier than even Nokia's tank-like Lumia 920. We've reached out to Adaia to request pictures and find out what all that bulk consists of.

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Source: Digitoday (Translated) (1), (2)

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

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Pretty Little Liars Recap: "Face Time"

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/07/pretty-little-liars-recap-face-time/

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Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Motorola Droid Ultra appears on placeholder page, may wear a Kevlar vest

Motorola Droid Ultra appears on placeholder page, may wear a Kevlar vest

An almost empty webpage has appeared on Motorola's US portal, apparently confirming the existence of a handset going by the name of the Droid Ultra. Now, while there are specs listed, all the numbers match those of the RAZR M, so we're pretty sure it's a cloned template and not a true indication of hardware. Alongside a space where the device would normally be pictured sits a box headed "think thin," which pegs the Droid Ultra as having a DuPont Kevlar body and a selection of "glossy colors." There's nothing more to add right now, but it seems the Moto X isn't the only handset Google's smartphone division has been working on.

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Via: Pocketnow

Source: Motorola

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/02/motorola-droid-ultra/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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Meet Styx and Kerberos, Pluto's newly named moons

Meet Styx and Kerberos, Pluto's newly named moons

SETI's best known for its search for sentient life in the cosmos, but when the Hubble space telescope found a pair of new moons orbiting Pluto (at SETI's behest), it decided to do some planetoid naming, too. Today, SETI announced those names: Styx and Kerberos. The institute didn't grant titles to the moons itself, however. Instead, it put the onus on the public to come up with the proper names -- with instructions from the International Astronomical Union (IAU) that the nomenclature have something to do with the mythological underworld known as Hades. Voting lasted for two weeks, and SETI received over 450,000 regular votes and around 30,000 write-ins. Though many wished for the moons to be named for Stephen Colbert or the Romulan home world, the IAU found those choices to be unfit for the new moons. Instead, we have Styx (the river that separates earth from the underworld) and Kerberos (the three-headed dog that serves as the guardian to the underworld) -- who said studying Classics was a waste of time?

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Source: SETI Institute

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/02/styx-and-kerberos-pluto-moons-seti/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Snowden applies for Russian asylum, Putin says stop harming U.S.

By Alexei Anishchuk and Lidia Kelly

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden has applied for political asylum in Russia, a Russian official said on Monday, but President Vladimir Putin said he was not welcome unless he stopped harming U.S. interests "as strange as that sounds coming from my lips".

Wikileaks activist Sarah Harrison, who is travelling with Snowden, handed his application to a Russian consular official in the transit area at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport late on Sunday, Kim Shevchenko, a consul at the airport, told Reuters.

The Los Angeles Times, citing an unidentified Russian Foreign Ministry official, reported that Snowden had met Russian diplomats and given them a list of 15 countries where he wished to apply for asylum. Foreign Ministry and Kremlin officials declined immediate comment on the reports.

Putin, speaking eight days after Snowden arrived at a Moscow airport where he is believed to remain, repeated that Russia had no intention of handing him over to the United States, where he faces espionage charges.

"Russia has never given up anyone to anybody and does not plan to. And nobody ever gave anyone up to us," Putin said.

For the second time in a week, Putin said Russian intelligence agencies were not working with the 30-year-old American who fled his country and leaked details of secret U.S. government surveillance programs.

"If he wants to stay here, there is one condition: He must stop his work aimed at harming our American partners, as strange as that sounds coming from my lips," he told reporters after a gas exporters' conference in Moscow.

But Putin said he suspected that Snowden would not stop leaking information, because "he feels himself to be a human rights activist".

"So he must choose a country of destination and go there," he said, speaking before the asylum request to Russia was reported. "Unfortunately, I don't know when this will happen."

The president of Ecuador, where Snowden was known to be seeking asylum, said on Sunday that his fate was in Russia's hands because Ecuador could not consider the plea until he reached Ecuador or one of its embassies.

Snowden, who has not been seen by reporters scouring the airport, has had his U.S. passport revoked and countries around the world are under U.S. pressure to deny him asylum.

A U.S. national security official said that, as far as the U.S. government knew, Snowden was still in the transit zone and would have a "hard time leaving" the airport even if he wanted to.

"NOT OUR AGENT"

When asked about speculation that Snowden might leave with one of the delegations to the conference, whose guests included the presidents of Venezuela and Bolivia, Putin said did not know of such plans.

Some Russians say Putin should grant Snowden asylum, but his remarks suggested the former Soviet KGB officer has little sympathy with the actions of the former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor, who is seen by some at home as a traitor.

Shortly after Snowden fled the United States to Hong Kong last month and long before he arrived in Russia, Putin suggested the surveillance methods he revealed were justified in fighting terrorism, if carried out lawfully.

Although Russia has sometimes done spy swaps with the United States, Putin suggested on Monday that this was not on the cards for Snowden. "As for Mr Snowden, he is not our agent and he is not working with us," said Putin.

Putin also shrugged off a controversy over whether Washington had spied on its European allies. "But I don't want to get bogged down in this, this is a professional issue," Putin told reporters.

Obama, at a news conference in Tanzania dominated by the EU controversy, repeated that the United States was working through law enforcement channels to prod Russia to extradite Snowden.

Obama said there had been "high-level discussions with the Russians about trying to find a solution to the problem".

(Additional reporting by Alissa de Carbonnel in Moscow, Mark Hosenball in Washington and Jeff Mason in Dar Es Salaam; Writing by Steve Gutterman; Editing by Douglas Busvine and Ralph Boulton)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/putin-says-snowden-stop-harming-american-partners-151307032.html

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Egypt on the edge after Mursi rebuffs army ultimatum

By Shaimaa Fayed and Paul Taylor

CAIRO (Reuters) - President Mohamed Mursi rebuffed an army ultimatum to force a resolution to Egypt's political crisis, saying on Tuesday that he had not been consulted and would pursue his own plans for national reconciliation.

But the Islamist leader looked increasingly isolated, with ministers resigning, the liberal opposition refusing to talk to him and the armed forces, backed by millions of protesters in the street, giving him until Wednesday to agree to share power.

Newspapers across the political spectrum saw the army's 48-hour deadline as a turning point. "Last 48 hours of Muslim Brotherhood rule," the opposition daily El Watan declared. "Egypt awaits the army," said the state-owned El Akhbar.

The confrontation has pushed the most populous Arab nation closer to the brink amid a deepening economic crisis two years after the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, raising concern in Washington, Europe and neighbouring Israel.

Protesters remained encamped overnight in Cairo's central Tahrir Square and protest leaders called for another mass rally on Tuesday evening to try to force the president out.

Senior members of Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood used the word "coup" to describe the military ultimatum, backed by a threat that the generals will otherwise impose their own road map for the nation.

In a statement issued nine hours after General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi delighted Mursi's opponents by effectively ordering the president to heed the demands of demonstrators, the president's office used considerably less direct language to indicate he would go his own way.

"The president of the republic was not consulted about the statement issued by the armed forces," it said. "The presidency sees that some of the statements in it carry meanings that could cause confusion in the complex national environment.

"The presidency confirms that it is going forward on its previously plotted path to promote comprehensive national reconciliation ... regardless of any statements that deepen divisions between citizens."

The Brotherhood's political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, said the Egyptian people alone had the right to draw a roadmap for the nation and had done so in the constitution approved in a referendum last December.

It called on the people "to rally to defend constitutional legitimacy and express their refusal of any coup against it."

Describing civilian rule as a great gain from the revolution of 2011, Mursi said he would not let the clock be turned back. Egypt's first freely elected leader, he has been in office for just a year. But many Egyptians are impatient with his economic management and inability to win the trust of non-Islamists.

Mursi also spoke to U.S. President Barack Obama by phone on Monday, the presidency said in a separate statement, stressing that Egypt was moving forward with a peaceful democratic transition based on the law and constitution.

The White House said Obama, visiting Tanzania, encouraged him to respond to the protests and "underscored that the current crisis can only be resolved through a political process".

RESIGNATIONS

Six ministers who are not members of Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood have tendered their resignations since Sunday's huge demonstrations, including foreign minister, Mohamed Kamel Amr, the official MENA news agency said.

In another blow to the president, Egypt's top appeals court on Tuesday upheld the dismissal of the prosecutor general appointed by Mursi last year. He was a major bugbear to the liberal opposition.

The court decision removed public prosecutor Talaat Abdallah, accused of using his position to pursue journalists, artists and critics of the president while turning a blind eye to human rights abuses. It reinstated his predecessor.

The ruling contributed to a sense that Mursi's administration is disintegrating even as he clings to office.

Mursi's military adviser, U.S.-trained former chief-of-staff General Sami Enan, also resigned.

"The Egyptian people have spoken and as a result everyone must listen and implement, especially since this unprecedented (protest) was accompanied by the fall of some martyrs which is unacceptable because Egyptian blood is valued highly and must be preserved," Enan told Al Arabiya television.

El-Watan quoted senior General Adel El-Mursi as saying that if there were no agreement among political leaders to hold early presidential elections, the alternative could involve "a return to revolutionary legitimacy".

Under that scenario, the sole functioning chamber of parliament, the Islamist-dominated Shura Council, would be dissolved, the Islamist-tinged constitution enacted under Mursi would be scrapped, and a presidential council would rule by decree until fresh elections could be held under new rules, he was quoted as saying. That is largely the opposition position.

There was no immediate official confirmation of the reported plan. A military spokesman could not be reached for comment.

Highlighting the huge scale of anti-Mursi protests, an opposition TV station broadcast aerial footage of vast crowds thronging Cairo's central Tahrir Square, spilling over a wide adjoining area and stretching across the Nile bridges.

The armed forces used helicopters to monitor the crowds on Sunday and Monday.

Attacks on Brotherhood offices have added to feelings among Islamists that they are under siege. Some Brotherhood leaders, who swept a series of votes last year, said they would look to put their own supporters on the streets.

World powers are looking on anxiously, including the United States, which has long funded the Egyptian army as a key component in the security of Washington's ally Israel.

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke to Sisi, his Egyptian counterpart, on Monday. It is unclear how far the Egyptian military has informed, or coordinated with, its U.S. sponsors.

The United Nations Human Rights office called on Mursi to listen to the demands of the people and engage in a "serious national dialogue" but also said: "Nothing should be done that would undermine democratic processes."

A senior European diplomat said that if the army were to go further and remove Mursi by force, the international community would have no alternative but to condemn the toppling of a democratically elected president.

Yasser El-Shimy, Egypt analyst at the International Crisis Group, said the army's move, by hardening positions on either side, had it very difficult to find a constitutional way out of the crisis - for which Mursi could use his power of decree.

"It will have to override the constitution and wage a full coup," Shimy said of the army. "Things could deteriorate very rapidly from there, either through confrontations on the street, or international sanctions.

"Mursi is calling their bluff. Saying to them, 'if you are going to do this, you will have to do it over my dead body'."

DEADLINES

The coalition that backed Sunday's protests said there was no question of negotiating now with Mursi on the general's timetable and it was already formulating positions for discussion directly with the army once the 48 hours are up.

In his statement, Sisi insisted that he had the interests of democracy at heart - a still very flawed democracy that Egyptians have been able to practise as a result of the army pushing aside Mubarak in the face of a popular uprising in 2011.

That enhanced the already high standing of the army among Egyptians, and the sight of military helicopters streaming national flags over Cairo's Tahrir Square at sunset, after Sisi had laid down the law, sent huge crowds into a frenzy of cheers.

Among Mursi's allies are groups with more militant pasts, including al-Gamaa al-Islamiya, a sometime associate of al Qaeda, whose men fought Mubarak's security forces for years and who have warned they would not tolerate renewed military rule.

Some Islamist groups, notably the Salafi Nour Party, which came second only to the Brotherhood in parliamentary elections last year, called for dialogue.

Liberal coalition leaders appointed former U.N. nuclear watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei as their negotiator with the army and are pushing for the senior judge on the constitutional court to replace Mursi as head of state for an interim period, while technocrats - and generals - would administer the country.

A military source said Sisi was keen not to repeat the experience of the 17 months between Mubarak's fall and Mursi's election, when a committee of generals formed a government that proved unpopular as the economy struggled.

The army would prefer a more hands-off approach, supervising government but not running it.

For many Egyptians, fixing the economy is key. Unrest since Mubarak fell has decimated tourism and investment and state finances are in poor shape, drained by extensive subsidy regimes and struggling to provide regular supplies of fuel.

The Cairo bourse, reopening after a holiday, shot up nearly 5 percent in early trade after the army's move.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypts-mursi-rebuffs-army-ultimatum-sets-own-course-064705067.html

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PSA: Download your Google Reader data by July 15th

PSA Download your Google Reader data by July 15th

Right on schedule, Google's popular Reader site has gone offline. Visitors are now greeted with an apology message of sorts, along with a warning that data will be permanently deleted after 12PM PST on July 15th. In the meantime, you can use Google Takeout to download a copy of your subscription info, including lists you follow, starred items and notes. In fact, now might be an excellent time to snag data from other sites -- you never know when Mountain View will opt to "sunset" your other beloved services, too.

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Source: Google

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/02/download-google-reader-data/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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