May 5, 2012 | Uncategorized
Any local United States business can use the new Facebook?s Offers product ? free-to-create coupons that businesses can share to the news feed, and that users can bring to stores to redeem these coupons. This was actually first announced in February at the FMC (Facebook Marketing Conference), this product has actually been in private testing with a select group of brands who worked with Facebook reps to run the offers. Now the promotional product is available in a self-serve interface.
While it will not cost businesses anything to run offers, Facebook could still make money on them. If they perform well in the news feed and drive business to physical stores, those stores may spend more on Facebook ads that increase their Page fan counts ? and the subscriber bases for the coupons.
So this is just another great idea Facebook has put into play to grow businesses and have more businesses interact in Facebook and bring businesses to spend more money with them.
May 4, 2012 | Uncategorized
In this fast pace world where we want things to happen in a push of a button and sometimes with that push of a button maybe we don’t pay attention to what could happen if we are careless. Well this story is about a man who bought a crappy song from Apple and was charged twice for it. Not only that but Robert Herkowitz feels that this happens too often and had filed a class action lawsuit against Apple for a sum of 5 million dollars. Alleging that the company ?double-bills? for purchases made on iTunes with ?troubling regularity? and that the company?s ?illegal? policies also apply to other digital stores like the App Store, the iBookstore and the Mac App Store.
Apple?s refund policy clearly states that Apple does not provide refunds in the event of a price reduction or promotional offering. Charging twice for a digital song, book or movie does not fall under that policy because its own terms limit it to price discount events only, Herskowitz asserts. So Apple wouldn’t refund him and if you are not paying attention to your account you could also be double charged and could possibly jump into this lawsuit. So keep a close eye on it.
May 3, 2012 | Uncategorized
With AT&T and Sprint still trying to corner the market in the LTE world, Verizon is going LTE broadband in the home.
Starting today Verizon’s HomeFusion Broadband service will bring LTE-powered Internet access nationwide. This service, which actually originally launched in March within six markets, feeds Internet to connected devices in the home ranging from computers to gaming consoles.
Verizon’s HomeFusion LTE will fly into homes through professionally-installed antennae receivers placed on the outside of the house (this will cost you $199.99), then transmit signal to a Wi-Fi router inside the house. Using Wi-Fi, customers can connect up to 20 devices. Customers should expect downlink speeds of between 5Mbps and 12Mbps and uplink speeds ranging from 2Mbps to 5Mbps.
Plans vary from $60 per month for 10GB of data, $90 per month for 20GB, or $120 per month for 30GB, with a $10 per GB penalty for each plan after reaching the cap.
May 2, 2012 | Uncategorized
Verizon has announced that it is launching an $80 prepaid plan that will come with 1GB of data and unlimited talk/text with a prepaid MiFi hotspot. The one thing you would need to do however is to get the Samsung Illusion which comes with a $169.99 but alas you are stuck with 3G speeds. There is also a prepaid LTE mobile hotspot with three prepay mobile broadband plans. Thie first is $15 which gives you 250MB of data usage within one week, a $60 plan that gets you 3GB of data over a month and a $90 plan that will get you 10GB per month. So you have a few new prepaid options available to you. The phone however is a actually a good deal as the other unlimited plans are over $90 without data So some nice prepaid options for those who want it.
May 1, 2012 | Uncategorized
Skype said today that it is looking into a new tool that very well could collect your last know IP which in fact could potentially compromise your privacy. There are actually instructions posted on a site called Pastebin that showed how a person?s IP could actually be shown without adding the person as a contact but by just looking at the person?s general info and log files. Skype made this statement via email “this is an ongoing, industry-wide issue faced by all peer-to-peer software companies. We are committed to the safety and security of our customers and we are taking measures to help protect them.”
Microsoft currently owns Skype. Which means if Skype is starting an investigation of sorts they will have Microsoft behind them which can be a very strong partner in the fight to protect privacy. Now if you don?t know the reason this is so important is because an IP address is a piece of information in which the person can track your location.
So a warning for now to all of those using Skype, your IP could be out there for people to see.
Apr 30, 2012 | Uncategorized
Gamers, it is time to rejoice as the Nvidia GTX 690 is coming this May! Exciting right? Well let me just tell you this card comes with a price. The card is slated to be sold for a price tag of $999. The card looks to have 2 DVI ports and a mini HDMI port. This is going to be a 4GB video card and excuse the jargon you are about to read but I need to put these specs down and if you don’t understand them let me just say this card is fast.
The GTX 690 has 3,072 CUDA cores, running at a 915MHz base clock and 1,019MHz boost clock, both slightly reduced from the standard values on a standalone GTX 680 graphics card. The memory clock is unchanged at an effective rate of 6GHz, and you get two batches of 2GB of GDDR5 RAM, totaling 4GB of dedicated video buffer.
The speculation on the release is limited availability on May 3rd and a possible full role on May 7th. Either way you are looking at an awesome card at not so awesome price. Personally this card is nice but there are plenty of video cards out there that are really good and are half or less of the price of this card but hey if you have one thousand dollars to burn and you are looking to upgrade your gaming rig this is a nice touch.
Are you going to be buying a new video card? Don’t want to take the chance of installing it all on your own? Call Geek Choice at 800-433-543 and we can do it all for you, right in the comfort of your home.
Apr 29, 2012 | Uncategorized
The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act also known as CISPA was approved by the US House of Representatives on April 26th. The vote was 248 to 168 in favor of it.
CISPA would “waive every single privacy law ever enacted in the name of cybersecurity,” Rep. Jared Polis, a Colorado Democrat and onetime Web entrepreneur, said during the debate. “Allowing the military and NSA to spy on Americans on American soil goes against every principle this country was founded on.”
So what happens now? The bill is brought to the Senate floor. It is important to note that a lot of cyber security legislation has been stalled for many years. The bill would not grant the NSA or Homland Security any added surveillance authority but it would bring in a new era of information sharing between government agencies and companies. So the biggest problem is privacy and would allow the government the ability to access companies databases which in many cases would violate the terms of service agreement you accept with them but if the government wants it they can get it with this act. So if you don?t want the chance of the government messing with our privacy anymore contact your senators and tell them you want them to say no to CISPA.
Apr 28, 2012 | Uncategorized
The Amazon Q1 fiscal numbers are in and there is some good and some bad and there you have the fiscal numbers of Amazon for Q1. Net sales have increased by 34% which equates to $13.18 billion. Although net income was down by 35% and that was only $130 million. Last year this time they had $210 million. Now the sad part about Q1 is the lack of information on the Kindle Fire and how that is working out for Amazon. Just yesterday I wrote a blog based on a study done from Comscore in which the Android tablet market is dominated by the fire with over 50% of the market. So Amazon had some ups and downs in Q1 but I am sure with the Fire and their prime services they will recover some of net income.
Apr 27, 2012 | Uncategorized
Comscore has done some research on who is selling best in the Android Tablet market. The numbers are in and it is no surprise to me that the Kindle Fire is tops in the market holding just over 54% of the market. Now that is impressive because the next market share goes to the Samsung Galaxy tablets at a meager 15.4%. Now why is it no surprise that the Fire is on the top? Price. The $199 price point is practical and affordable. Now by no means is the Kindle Fire perfect. You can only get apps from the Amazon market and every app that can be used on a Droid is not available. Also no volume buttons on the Fire which is frustrating at times when you want to quickly turn the volume up or down. So that’s my take on it. What’s yours?
Apr 25, 2012 | Uncategorized
Netflix has announced $870 million in revenues for the fiscal Q1 of 2012. The company was also able to add just about 3 million subscribers to the streaming side estimating 1.21 million internationally and 1.74 domestic. A hit was taken in the DVD rental side, which honestly is no surprise, down 1.08 million customers to just about 10.09 million total and about 7 million of those also have the steaming service. Remember awhile back Netflix decided it would be better to split up the streaming and DVD services into 2 separate charges which made many people angry enough to leave. I myself just decided to keep the streaming side of things. Netflix is also going to bring its streaming side with all new original content running from an all new Arrested Development season to Hemlock Grove which is a 13 episode series from Eli Roth which is set for a 2013 release. So Netflix seems to be putting a real move on the streaming side of things and the growth shows some positive strides and hopefully they will be able to keep it up.
