Superbug tracking app hits top medical spot in Apple's App Store

An application that uses big data to enable clinicians to track superbug transmission in their region has reached 100,000 downloads in less than a month. In its first week, the "Bugs + Drugs" app, created by medical software vendor Epocrates, shot to the number one free medical app spot in Apple's App Store when it was released last month. The app was created to track antibiotic resistant bacteria or "superbugs" such as e.coli and staph. A screen shot of Epocrates' Bugs + Drugs app on an iPhone. Every year more than 2 million people in the U.S. contract infections that are resistant to antibiotics, and at least 23,000 people die as a result, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Many clinicians who work outside of hospitals are unaware of the bacteria types pervasive in their regions. Epocrates wrote the app and collaborated with its parent company, AthenaHealth, to use the e-health record services and medical billing company's big data warehouse. AthenaHealth's cloud-based clinical database of 15 million patient records has antimicrobial susceptibility data connected to geolocated information about bacteria types and resistance patterns. The new app provides geographical data on the superbugs and information on the appropriate prescriptions to offer for antibiotic resistant strains. The Bugs + Drugs app's results can be viewed for bacteria by specimen types and is paired with Epocrates' free online drug reference app to help with prescribing decisions. "It is sometimes challenging to judge what the resistance is for a presenting bacteria. By displaying resistance patterns in my area, Epocrates Bugs + Drugs helps ensure that I prescribe only one course of antibiotic and avoid medications that have shown to be resistant," said Dr. Tolbert, a family physician in Burlington, Ky., said in a statement. "Epocrates helps me create a successful treatment plan, which provides higher levels of patient compliance and satisfaction." A screen shot of the prescription assistance program. The majority of bacterial searches in the app are in higher-risk metropolitan areas, such as New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, according to Epocrates. Susceptibility patterns associated with organisms including e.coli and staphylococcus aureus -- commonly found in urine and skin infections -- are among the most viewed by the app's users. Abbe Don, vice president of user experience at Epocrates, said the company adds more than 6,000 antibacterial lab data points to its cloud network every day to generate fresh results. "This is a great example of how aggregated [electronic health record] data can be utilized, and clinicians have clearly responded to it," Don said. "The app has now been accessed more than 300,000 times since launch, with an average of approximately 4,000 uses a day." download the latest trunk build of chromium download flash player ho tro firefox download angry birds on the computer for download youtube mp3 converter per mac download google chrome for mac os x 10.7 download modern combat 3 apk for android download intel hd graphics driver for windows 7 64 bit download 84 lumber bel air download kamus inggris indonesia untuk samsung champ download angry bird full vn zoom

A huge damage award looms as Apple and Samsung return to court next week

The battle between Apple and Samsung over smartphone design returns to a Silicon Valley courtroom next week as the companies fight over how much Samsung should pay for infringement of five Apple patents in 13 of its smartphones. It was just over a year ago that a jury in the same court awarded Apple $1.05 billion in damages after finding infringement of Apple's patents in numerous Samsung smartphones. But Judge Lucy Koh cut about $450 million from the total award and ordered a partial retrial after finding the jury had used an "impermissible legal theory"A in determining the amount. The case centers on two types of patents and the jury should have used a different formula in calculating the amount owed to Apple by Samsung for infringement of each type of patent, but it didn't consistently do that, Koh said. She also faulted Apple for misstating the date on which it notified Samsung about the infringement. As a result, some of the damages were too high, Koh said. "[I]t was Apple's strategic decision to submit an expert report using an aggressive notice date for all of the patents. The need for a new trial could have been avoided had Apple chosen a more circumspect strategy or provided more evidence to allow the jury or the Court to determine the appropriate award for a shorter notice period," she wrote at the time. On Nov. 12 in a District Court in San Jose courtroom, the two sides will begin selecting a jury. The trial will begin immediately after the jury selection. The patent infringement will not be reconsidered; neither will the roughly $600 million [m] in damages that Koh didn't strike down. "Your sole job in this trial is to determine the amount of damages to be awarded to Apple for Samsung's infringement of these patents," Judge Koh will tell jurors when their selection is complete, according to prepared jury instructions. download acer aspire one bios boot usb download jagal el usek song download justin timberlake zip 20 20 download java se development kit winxp download facebook for adobe air download yahoo messenger latest full version for download plants versus zombies cheats for money download age of empire 2 full version download comcast net richmond va download flash player 4 1

Microsoft's big test: Deciding what stays, what goes in touch-based Office

What Microsoft puts in its upcoming touch-based Office suite will be a huge test for the company, analysts said yesterday. "There's really nothing out there in the mobile world that provides anything near the power of Office on the desktop," said Ross Rubin of Reticle Research in a Monday interview. "It will be a massive challenge to preserve even the majority of that functionality." Microsoft has said it will release touch-enabled versions of the primary applications in Office -- Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and Word -- but has provided no clues of what that suite will be like. Nor has it disclosed a timetable for the touch-based suite, although rumors have pegged a ship date in the first half of 2014. "We are working on touch-first versions for our core apps in the Office suite, Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and we will bring these apps to Windows devices, and also to other devices ... at a proper timetable," is the most that company executive Qi Lu, who leads the Applications and Services Group, has said publicly. CEO Steve Ballmer, who will retire after the company appoints a new chief executive, has promised that the touch Office will come first to Windows 8.1 and only later to other platforms, including Apple's iPad. The timing may be secret, but the chore Microsoft has in front of it is not: It's massive, as Rubin asserted. Deciding what stays and what goes will be crucial to how customers perceive the touch Office, whether as a replacement, more or less, for the powerhouse desktop applications that are familiar to millions; as companion to the desktop; or as fit only for casual use and users. "It will be challenging to translate much of the advanced functionality of Microsoft Office into touch apps," said Al Hilwa of IDC, echoing Rubin. "I think most of the focus is going to be on light editing such as might be done on a tablet, versus playing around with Excel filters or pivot tables, for example." Mobile apps, like those envisioned for Office on tablets -- including Microsoft's own Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 -- typically boast a scaled-down feature set compared to desktop counterparts. Microsoft will either have to ditch swaths of features or devise a user interface (UI) that can hide most functionality at first glance, but still give users a way to find tools when they're needed. The Office "Ribbon" UI -- which debuted with Office 2007 to some disgruntlement -- may be one way the touch apps can mask complexity. "But the change to the ribbon [in Office 2007] is pretty small potatoes to what a mobile Office will have to accomplish," warned Rubin. Analysts don't doubt Microsoft's development acumen, but they wonder what choices the company will make, and how that will translate into customer reception. The latter is important because Office is important, not only to businesses worldwide, but also to Microsoft's bottom line. A stripped-down touch Office -- Hilwa's bet -- would be impossible to sell at the same price point as the full-fledged desktop version, even if there wasn't enormous downward pricing pressure in mobile overall. Paid mobile apps seem to be fading, largely replaced by the "freemium" model, where the app is free and developers earn revenue from in-app purchases for additional features or tools. download adobe indesign server cs5.5 download divx mpeg 4 dvd video decompressor download 7 eleven gas card download dbf viewer 2000 1.8 download mindless behavior all around the world album zip download facebook password hack with proof mp4 download hcl aptitude questions with answers download google toolbar for firefox 6.0.1 download skype 4 0 for windows vista download cara file youtube dengan keepvid

Perspective: What's Microsoft's Office Web Apps strategy?

Microsoft's addition of real-time collaboration to its free Office Web Apps last week was necessary in the short term to counter Google Docs, analysts agreed. But the company's longer-term strategy for the browser-based Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps remains less clear. "Real-time collaboration is what got Docs on the map. And Office didn't have it," said Michael Silver of Gartner in an interview Friday. Wes Miller, of Directions on Microsoft, agreed. "It's really important that they added [real-time collaboration] for those who were looking right-left, right-left at comparisons between Office and Google Docs," said Miller. "This was a counterpoint to Docs." Last Thursday, Microsoft began rolling out enhancements to the browser-based apps, notably real-time collaborative document editing. Previously, users could simultaneously edit documents but needed to save the changes before others could see them. Office Web Apps can be used free-of-charge, but they are also included with Office 365, the software-by-subscription service that Microsoft has been aggressively promoting and selling to businesses. There, Office Web Apps are linked to SharePoint, the Redmond, Wash. company's collaboration platform and central hub for storing, accessing and sharing documents. But Microsoft's overall strategy with Office Web Apps has always been something of a mystery. Clearly, one reason for their existence has been to defend against customer defections to Google Apps for Business, the $50 per user per year service that includes Docs. Microsoft currently counters Google Apps for Business with a pair of Office 365 plans built around Office Web Apps: One, aimed at small businesses with 25 or fewer employees, is priced at $5 per user per month ($60 annually); the second, targeting larger firms, runs $8 per user per month ($96 a year). Beyond that, however, its purpose has been debatable. Is it an eventual substitute for Office on the desktop? A loss-leader aimed at consumers? The cross-platform Office for tablets running Android or iOS? At the center of that debate is the central dilemma of Office Web Apps: Microsoft must walk a line between not offering enough functionality and offering too much. The former would negate its ability to compete with Google, the latter could prompt businesses to dump the higher-priced Office perpetual licenses or Office 365 plans that include rights to the desktop suite. Rivals don't have to join that high-wire act, since their business models don't rely on software sales, but on advertising (Google) or devices (Apple). In the past, Microsoft has done little to promote Office Web Apps. Anecdotally, many consumers and businesses, for instance, don't even know they exist. That hints Microsoft has been more afraid of the second pitfall -- putting too much in the apps -- than in failing at matching Google. download plants vs zombies iphone last stand achievement download system tools for xp download reckless moto game for android download wechat for symbian s60v2 download audio books to iphone download last.fm app for mac download cheat engine plants vs zombie 6 1 download google reader desktop gadget windows 7 download firefox 3 6 28

new Mac Pro signals commitment to professional computing

Apple is sending a signal that it hasn't abandoned the professional computing market with the latest Mac Pro, which will ship next month. But the workstation faces competition from its own sibling iMac as computer buyers weigh purchases. Loyalists of Apple's Mac Pro have been clamoring for an upgrade to the high-end desktop, which last received a facelift in 2010. The new workstation is priced starting at US$2,999 and has the latest Intel Xeon E5 processors, solid-state drive storage, Thunderbolt 2 and dual graphics cards tightly packed in a cylindrical chassis. The Mac Pro is targeted largely at creative professionals and engineers and has drawn interest for its new design and use of the latest technologies. "Apple has dominated the creative market for years. They have a lot of loyal users there, and those guys are influential," said Roger Kay, president at Endpoint Technologies Associates. The slow Mac Pro upgrade cycle led some to believe that Apple was terminating its high-end product lineup in favor of consumer products. There were concerns that the Mac Pro would be merged into the iMac line, much like the Xserve, which in 2010 was merged into the Mac Pro line. But Apple CEO Tim Cook last year confirmed that a new Mac Pro was on its way, and the product was announced in October. The new Mac Pro supports external 4K displays and has customized Apple motherboards with SSD storage provided via PCI-Express 3.0 slots. The $2,999 model has a 3.7GHz quad-core Intel Xeon E5 chip based on the Ivy Bridge microarchitecture, 10MB of L3 cache, 12GB of DDR3 DRAM and dual Advanced Micro Devices FirePro D300 GPUs. The $3,999 model has a 3.5GHz six-core Xeon E5 processor, 12MB of cache, 16GB of DRAM and dual AMD FirePro D500 GPUs with 3GB of dedicated GDDR5 VRAM. Other standard Mac Pro features include six Thunderbolt 2 ports, four USB 3.0 ports, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, 802.11ac Wi-Fi wireless and HDMI ports. The desktops can be configured to include faster processors and up to 64GB of DRAM. Craig Seeman, owner of Third Planet Video, a video production company in Brooklyn, New York, said that the Mac Pro's entry price is lower than expected. The latest hardware, especially two graphics processors, is one reason he will upgrade to the latest system. "The smaller design is much more space efficient. This is of major importance to those of us who work in small and often crowded offices," Seeman said. Given the similar price point for the new and previous Mac Pros, the move to two GPUs cannot be underestimated, especially given that time is money for professional users, Seeman said. The standardization of dual GPUs will facilitate software development so more video rendering and other computing tasks are off-loaded to graphics processors from CPUs, Seeman said. download temple run for 5800 download pdf password cracker pro 2 crack download sterowniki do ati mobility radeon hd 5470 download backup manager for ps3 download garmin unlocker alternative v7.1.6 download mxkey htc unlocker tool v1.0 addon download minecraft xray texture pack mac download facebook messenger untuk hp nokia download english hindi talking dictionary software download flash player 9 pc

iOS 7 now powers 3 out of 4 Apple devices

Nearly three months after the launch of iOS 7, three-quarters of all mobile devices from Apple are running the newest operating system, Apple and others have agreed. Almost three out of four devices that accessed the App Store for the week ending Dec. 1 ran iOS 7, Apple said on its developer website. (Image: Apple.) Apple started serving iOS 7 on Sept. 18, and shipped the operating system on its fall wave of new products, including the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C -- which went on sale later that month -- and the iPad Air and Retina-equipped iPad Mini that reached retail last month. According to Apple's iOS developer support site, 74% of the devices tapping the App Store for seven days prior to Dec. 1 ran iOS 7, more than three times the next-most-popular edition, last year's iOS 6. Apple's number closely matched those of third-party firms that have also measured iOS version traffic. On Tuesday, for instance, mobile advertising company Chitika, of Westborough, Mass., pegged iOS 7 iPhone traffic through its network at 74%. iPad owners have upgraded at a slower pace, with 64% of the tablets running iOS 7. Chitika's tally was generated between Oct. 25 and Nov. 18. Mixpanel, a San Francisco-based mobile app analytics vendor, has also tracked iOS 7 uptake. As of Friday, the new operating system accounted for 79% of the Apple devices accessing Mixpanel clients' apps or websites. That was up from 61% in late September, and a slight increase from the 76% of one month ago. iOS 7 uptake has slowed dramatically since first few days and weeks of the upgrade's availability -- Chitika measured iOS 7's penetration at 52% just a week after release -- but it remains above levels set by its predecessor. "[It is] very likely that iOS 7 will continue to substantially outpace iOS 6 adoption, which reached 83% close to six months following its release in September 2012," Chitika said on its blog earlier this week. A rapid uptake tempo is worth more than bragging rights by Apple partisans, as the faster an operating system is adopted, the more willing developers are to take advantage of its features and refresh their apps. That has special significance with iOS 7, since it was the first design overhaul since the OS's 2007 debut and boasts a radically different look and feel. iOS 7 can be installed as an upgrade on the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and iPhone 5; the iPad 2, the third- and fourth-generation iPads with Retina screens, and 2012's first-generation iPad Mini; and the fifth-generation iPod Touch that debuted, with different storage sizes, in October 2012 and May 2013. download pes 2012 pro evolution soccer 1.0.0 cracked android apk download quickbooks simple start edition 2009 download dbpoweramp music converter crackeado download adobe flash player 10 for mac powerpc download need for speed undercover for android apk download pc hand media converter download the sims 2 deluxe for full version download winamp skins windows 7 download how do i winzip for download plants vs zombies hd 1 0 5 ipa

Free Mavericks sets OS X adoption record

Apple's Mavericks operating system set the OS X early-adoption record last month, with a third of all Macs running the new edition within just weeks of its introduction. The fast uptake validated Apple's rationale for giving away OS X 10.9, aka Mavericks. "What's most important to us is seeing the software in the hands of as many Mac users as possible," Craig Federighi, who leads software engineering at Apple, said during an October event where he announced that Mavericks would be free. "Today, spending hundreds of dollars to get the most out of your computer are gone," Federighi added, taking a shot at rival Microsoft, which charges $199 for its Windows 8 Pro upgrade. Mac users running 2012's Mountain Lion, 2011's Lion and 2009's Snow Leopard on compatible systems have been able to download Mavericks from the Mac App Store free of charge since Oct. 22. According to Web analytics company Net Applications, Mavericks' accounted for 32% of all versions of OS X used in November, a record one-month jump of 21 percentage points. Mavericks' adoption after its first full month of availability was nearly double that of OS X Mountain Lion, the $20 upgrade Apple started selling on July 25, 2012. By the end of its first complete month, Mountain Lion had accumulated a 19% share of all Macs. Mountain Lion required five months to reach 32%, meaning Mavericks did that in a fourth the time. The bulk of Mavericks' share came at the expense of Mountain Lion, which plummeted 18 percentage points in November -- another record change for OS X -- to end at 25%. Lion dropped 2.5 points, its largest decline since the release of its successor Mountain Lion, ending the month with an 18% user share of all Macs. Not surprisingly, Snow Leopard barely budged, losing just half a percentage point in November to slip to 20% of all editions. Users of Snow Leopard have stubbornly resisted upgrade opportunities, in large part because it was the last version of OS X to let them run applications compiled for the PowerPC processor. Although Rosetta, the translation utility that allows PowerPC software to run on Intel-based Macs, is not installed by default on OS X 10.6, or Snow Leopard, it does automatically install the first time a PowerPC program executes. Lion, Mountain Lion and Mavericks do not support Rosetta, and so are unable to run PowerPC applications. Although Apple has not trumpeted the number of Mavericks downloads, something it regularly did with past OS X upgrades, the operating system remains the No. 1 free download on the Mac App Store, an indication of its continued popularity. Mac owners with eligible systems can download OS X Mavericks from the Mac App Store. Mavericks' uptake after its first full month of availability was nearly double that of its predecessor, Mountain Lion. (Data: Net Applications.) download latest focus accounting software download step up 2 last dance song mp3 download star wars battlefront 3 download the day the earth caught fire download plants vs zombies achievement list download serial number of internet manager 5.19 download microsoft access templates 2003 download yahoo messenger 9 in limba romana download plants vs zombies ds rom europe download cisco firewall password cracker

Apple's dark tower Mac Pro ship date quickly slips to February 2014

Apple today started taking orders for its pricy Mac Pro workstation, but shipping dates almost immediately slipped to February, irritating customers who have been awaiting the 'dark tower' desktop computer. On Wednesday, Apple said it would kick off orders of the Mac Pro today after teasing customers since June with images and descriptions of the radically redesigned machine. When Apple's online store re-opened early today, ship dates were posted as Dec. 30. Within hours, the dates slipped to February, even for the two stock configurations, which start at $2,999 for a quad-core system with 12GB of memory, dual AMD FirePro graphics processors and 256GB of PCIe-based flash storage. The shipping delays hint at low production volume, higher-than-expected sales, or both. The bet would be on the first, since the Mac Pro is being assembled in a new factory in Austin, Texas. Apple has touted the Mac Pro's built-in-the-U.S.A. attribute, most recently in a tweet by CEO Tim Cook Wednesday. Some were disappointed by the quickly-slipping dates. "February is a much later ship date than most of us were expecting," said a Computerworld reader in an email early Thursday. "The manner in which the Mac Pro was announced months ago implied that it would ship towards the end of the year, not just be available for ordering. Or, at least, that is what we inferred," the NASA employee added. The Mac Pro situation smelled a bit like the iMac debacle in late 2012, when Apple announced the redesigned desktop, but then took weeks to deliver orders. Cook ended up regretting the hasty iMac introduction, which was a major cause of a 22% decline in Mac revenue in 2012's fourth quarter compared to the same period the year before. "If we could run it over frankly, I would have announced the iMac after the turn of the year, because we felt our customers had to wait too long for that specific product," Cook said during a January 2013 conference call with Wall Street. He defended Apple's Mac line three months later, rejecting the developing belief that the personal computer was a dead-end market. The Mac Pro easily remained Apple's priciest personal computer. If a customer pulled out all the stops and configured the 10-in. black cylinder with the top-end Xeon processor -- a 12-core 2.7GHz CPU with 30MB of L3 cache -- 64GB of system memory, a 1TB SSD (solid-state drive) and the most expensive dual graphics processors, the price tag would hit $9,599. Apple's redesigned Mac Pro is being assembled at a Texas factory, the first Mac in decades made in the U.S. (Image: Apple.) download photo recovery from memory card download vlc media player 2.0.6 (32-bit) download antivirus smadav september 2011 download picasa 9 windows xp download tick tock pusha t joell ortiz download acer laptop to hotspot converter keygen download python 2.5 image library pil download fourth amendment x ray shirt download similar sites like keepvid com download microsoft security essentials 2 0 522 0 beta

Proposed California law would mandate smartphone kill switch

Kill-switch technology that can render a lost or stolen smartphone useless would become mandatory in California under a new bill that will be proposed to the state legislature in January. The bill will be introduced by state Sen. Mark Leno, a Democrat representing San Francisco and neighboring towns, and George Gascon, the district attorney for San Francisco. Gasc0n has been spearheading a push by major law-enforcement agencies across the U.S. for more to be done to prevent smartphone theft. San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon speaks to reporters in his office Thursday. The proposed law could reach well beyond the borders of California. Because of the difficulty and added cost of producing handsets solely for sale in California, it could serve to make kill-switch technology a standard feature on phones sold across the U.S. The snatching of smartphones, often at knife or gunpoint, has become one of the biggest types of street crime across the country. It accounts for around half of all street crime in San Francisco, according to GascA3n's office. Gascon and Eric Schneiderman, the state attorney general for New York, are at the head of a campaign to get phone makers and carriers to do more to make stolen cellphones useless. Kill-switches typically work by wiping a phone of personal information and making it impossible to reactivate or reprogram without a passcode or other authorization. In theory, that should sharply reduce the incentive to steal phones because the handsets would become useless. Two companies, Apple and Samsung, have already introduced such technology after hearing from Gascon and Schneiderman. Apple's activation lock is part of the new iOS 7 operating system and Samsung preinstalls the Lojack for Android app, but that requires an annual subscription. But Microsoft and Google, which were also contacted and asked to do more, have been dragging their feet. A recent survey undertaken by Gascon's office found around four in five iPhone users were using the activation lock, but that's still a problem, he said earlier this week. "Until Activation Lock is fully opt-out, it appears many iPhone owners will not have the solution enabled," he said in a statement. "This leaves iPhone users at risk, as thieves cannot distinguish between those devices that have the feature enabled and those that do not." The bill would address that and will be formally introduced in January at the start of the 2014 California state legislative session. download plants vs zombie 2 2012 download droid x wont angry birds download flash player app exe download service call management database download dawn of war dark crusade patch download the hunter 2012 demo download speed up my pc 2013 serial key download skype in i phone download adobe flash player 10 1 apk for android download body of lies in hindi

Apple and China Mobile sign deal to sell iPhones in January

Apple plans to offer the iPhone to more than 760 million China Mobile customers starting in  January, which could help it increase its share from the fifth position in this growing market. The company already sells its phones in China through two other carriers in the country -- China Telecom and China Unicom -- but a deal with China Mobile, the largest in the country, had eluded it for some time. One reason is that China Mobile uses a different wireless telecommunications standard from its competitors. As part of an agreement announced Sunday, Apple's iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C will be available from China Mobile and Apple retail stores in China on Jan. 17. Preregistration of the phones will begin on the carrier's website and through its customer service hotline from Wednesday. The pricing of the iPhone 5S and 5C for China Mobile will be available at a later date, Apple said in a statement. Apple's share of the Chinese smartphone market reached 8 percent in the third quarter, according to research firm Canalys. Samsung Electronics was the largest player with a 21 percent market share, followed by Lenovo with a 13 percent share. Local player Yulong Computer Telecommunication with 11 percent market share and Huawei with 9 percent share took the third and fourth places. China issued 4G licenses in December to three local carriers including China Telecom, which has been deploying base stations across the country using a 4G technology known as LTE TDD (Long-Term Evolution Time Division Duplex). Apple had been unwilling previously to support China Telecom's TD-SCDMA (Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access) 3G network technology, but on Sunday it announced that the iPhones would run on both the 4G TD-LTE and the 3G TD-SCDMA networks. China Mobile's 4G services will be available in 16 cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen by the end of this year, according to a joint statement by the two companies. By the end of 2014, China Mobile plans to complete the rollout of more than 500,000 4G base stations, which will cover more than 340 cities with 4G service, it added. download gta 3 on computer without buy download wallpapers for iphone 4 download xp emergency boot cd download acer aspire one bios restore download christmas music mp3 for download quotes about life getting you down download latest flash player windows xp download gimp mac os x install download 50 cent pimp mp3 download cheats for plants vs zombies ipad 2

Apple's Mac Pro is the new black

Apple's new futuristic-looking Mac Pro will be a status purchase, an analyst said today as she predicted the high-priced desktop will sell better than many expect. "In a very real sense, this tower, this Darth Vader desktop, will be the high tech equivalent of the Air Jordan sneaker," said Laura DiDio, lead analyst at Information Technology Intelligence Consulting (ITIC). "It's certainly not going to sell in huge numbers, not with a three- or four-thousand dollar price tag, but it definitely will have high-end appeal as a status thing." Apple first introduced the radically revamped Mac Pro, which resembles a 10-in. tall round trashcan more than anything else -- although some see similarities to the diminutive R2D2 robot from the "Star Wars" film franchise -- in June at its annual developers conference. There, Philip Schiller, Apple's top marketing executive, seemed to go off script when, after showing the Mac Pro's striking design, he said, "Can't innovate anymore, my ass." Schiller was referring to critics who had argued that Apple had lost its mojo after the death of co-founder Steve Jobs in 2011. In October, Apple revealed the base prices for two Mac Pro configurations -- $2,999 and $3,999 -- but began taking orders for the system only today. Within hours, shipping dates slipped to February from the second-to-last day of this month. Although DiDio repeatedly stressed that Apple would not sell large numbers of the Mac Pro, she saw it as further proof that the Cupertino, Calif. company can see machines at price points others wouldn't dare. "You have to remember that no matter what the financial analyst community says, there is a distinction between what the cognoscenti say and what consumers believe about Apple," said DiDio. "Consumers never bought into the idea that after Jobs died, that Apple was cooked. They love the brand and they love the products." Enough to drop several thousand dollars on a desktop cum workstation as a status symbol? "Despite the fact that the desktop is in decline and under pressure, there is still a market for them," said DiDio. "And Apple knows better than any other company how to target buyers." And how to appeal to status seekers as well as those who can put the system to productive use. "They're giving the customers what they want: something different," said DiDio. "It has top-line Intel, top-line AMD, the best graphics, the best design and it will do things that other desktops cannot. And it will give you bragging rights." The new Mac Pro (right) compared to the old version (left). The $2,999 Mac Pro -- a price unheard of for all but niche PCs -- includes a quad-core Intel Xeon E5 processor, 12GB of system memory, dual AMD FirePro D300 graphics processors (GPUs) and 256GB of PCIe-based flash storage. A six-core configuration with 16GB of memory and dual D500 GPUs runs $3,999. But DiDio argued that even at those prices, Apple may be providing customers with a bargain. "Apple almost always uses top-of-the-line components, it never puts plain-Jane entry-level components in its Macs," she said. There's some truth to what DiDio said. According to estimates -- necessary because the graphics cards inside the Mac Pro are apparently custom-designed for Apple by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) -- the two D300 GPUs in the lower-priced Mac Pro are worth about $1,200 alone. The same source, architosh, a website aimed at creative professionals who run CAD and 3-D software on Apple's OS X platform, pegged the higher-end Mac Pro's dual D500 GPUs at a $2,500 value. The Mac Pro tops out at $9,599 if each configurable option is maxed at the highest-priced component. Such a machine would boast a 2.7GHz 12-core Xeon E5 CPU, 64GB of system memory, a 1TB SSD (sold-state drive), and dual AMD FirePro D700 GPUs. At that price, a tricked-out Mac Pro would be worth the equivalent of about 46 pairs of Nike's most-expensive Air Jordan, the customizable Spizike iD basketball shoe, or enough to equip nine hoops teams, nearly a complete college conference. download fairstars audio converter pro download carlton sheets real estate toolkit warez download yahoo messenger complete setup download flash player for windows 7 cnet download pes 2012 for android apk+data download euro truck simulator 2 car mods download window manager for xp

eBay sellers scalp Mac Pro cylinders for nearly double retail price

A pair of eBay profiteers are trying to cash in on the shortages of Apple's new Vader-esque Mac Pro desktop computer by pricing their machines at nearly double the retail value. Apple started taking pre-orders of the new Mac Pro -- a 10-in. tall black cylinder -- early Thursday on its online store. Within hours, ship dates for new orders stretched from an initial Dec. 30 to some time in February. One eBay seller guaranteed delivery by Dec. 25, but did not reply to questions on how the Mac Pro was obtained. The lowest-priced stock configuration of the Mac Pro features a quad-core Intel Xeon E5 processor, 12GB of system memory, dual AMD FirePro D300 graphics processors (GPUs) and 256GB of PCIe-based flash storage. Two eBay sellers have listed that entry-level Mac Pro at purchase prices of $5,500 and $5,800, or 83% and 93% above retail, respectively. One of the two sellers acknowledged not having the Mac Pro in hand, but claimed to have scored one of the earliest available units, which was to arrive no later than Jan. 7. "I will ship the computer to you brand new in box within 24 hours of me receiving it," the seller wrote on the item's page. The other seller guaranteed delivery before Christmas. Computerworld asked the seller how the computer had been obtained when the earliest reported ship date had been Dec. 30, but did not receive an immediate reply. It wasn't surprising to see sellers leverage the Mac Pro shortage for cash: When a new technology product is in tight supply, especially right after its launch, money mercenaries quickly materialize. Shortages of Apple's iPad 2 in 2011 and the first Retina-equipped iPad in early 2012 drove eBay prices sky-high as sellers listed the tablets for hundreds above retail. In 2010, during the midst of what then-Apple CEO Steve Jobs later called "Antennagate," eBay sellers sold "bumpers" -- strips of rubber and plastic that fit around the edges of the iPhone 4 -- for as much as three times Apple's price as the Cupertino, Calif., company's own supplies evaporated. More recently, in July 2013, sellers gouged customers who were desperate to get their hands on Google's then-new Chromecast stream-to-TV device, pricing the $35 dongle as high as $300, a whopping 757% markup. The seller who listed the Mac Pro at $5,500 alluded to the extortionate pricing. "If I do not get [the auction] reserve [price] I am keeping it as I really want to keep the computer but will part with it for a price," the seller wrote. Apple has not revealed why the Mac Pro, which was unveiled in June at the company's annual developer conference, is in such short supply. Speculation, however, has centered on the fact that the computer is being assembled at a new $100 million Austin, Texas, facility that Apple has touted as part of a made-in-the-USA campaign. download adobe flash player para windows 7 baixaki download sound card dell vostro 1015 download unlocker beta version 3.0.6 download 2 chainz turn up download desktop software for blackberry torch 9810 download combined community codec pack mac download game plant vs zombie 4 trainer download adobe flash player 2010 full version

Google announces social sharing done right

Google quietly unveiled something this week called Google+ History. It's a feature that brings your activity from all over the Internet into Google+. Don't go looking for Google+ History. Right now, it's available only to developers so they can support it with their software. Google will make it available to users later. In a nutshell, Google+ History will make it possible for third-party apps, sites and services to share information about your online activities with Google+. For example, if you post on Twitter, a copy of your tweet will show up in your Google+ profile. Sounds like Facebook's "frictionless sharing," right? Well, not so fast. Google+ History has one thing "frictionless sharing" doesn't have: Friction! Google+ History doesn't actually share content from the other sites with your friends. Instead, it places it in a secure, private space on Google+ where you -- and only you -- can see it. If you would like to share any of these items, you have to explicitly take action to do so. In my opinion, this is how social sharing should work. Using Google+ History Details about Google+ History are hard to come by. But it's pretty clear what Google hopes to accomplish. Right now, Google+ History exists only in the form of an API, a programming interface that enables software components to interact and connect, and as a preview for developers for testing their software. Google+ History is functionally similar to Google's Instant Upload feature, which automatically uploads pictures you take with your phone to your Google+ profile without sharing them with anyone but you. When you create a post, you may choose to include any of the phone pictures that have been uploaded via Instant Upload. Or you can ignore them. In fact, it's helpful to think about Google+ History as an expansion of Instant Uploads -- it expands the types of content that can be "instantly uploaded" and makes "instant upload" functionality available to companies beyond Google. The magic feature of both Instant Uploads and Google+ History is the instant and automatic uploading of content that is not shared until the user deliberately shares it. In other words, it doesn't share content for you -- it locks and loads it for you. The content gets shared only if you take action to share it. Here's how I think users will experience Google+ history. As third-party websites, online services and mobile apps increasingly support Google+ History, they'll add Google+ to the list of options for sharing what happens on their services. If you agree and choose to authenticate Google+, everything -- or some things -- you do on that service will show up on your Google+ profile, but only where you can see it and nobody else can. Let's say you use Foursquare and read your favorite tech publication -- the one you're reading now. And let's also say you authenticate these services with Google+ History. It's Saturday morning. You go to a Starbucks and check in on Foursquare. Then you use your tablet to read an article like the one you're reading now. You're fascinated by this brilliant Mike Elgan guy, and you want to tell your friends on Google+. So you fire up Google+ and there already waiting for you are both actions, which Google calls "moments": The check-in and the article. These are sitting on top of an incredibly long list of past "moments" from the apps you've authenticated to work with Google+ History. Instead of opening a blank window to write a post, you simply choose "Share" from a drop-down menu on the article "moment." Google+ History will put a thumbnail photo from the originating site, plus a link to that content and a summary. In other words, it will build the basic Google+ post for you. Then you can write an additional sentence or two and click a button to share it. download adobe flash player for htc download uc browser for samsung gt b5722 mobile download excel utility for service tax return download samsung kies to my pc download de videos adobe flash player download old version of flash player mac download waka flocka ego trippin download love parade the boss download latest flash player from cnet download soar into the sun

Google+ ups competition with Facebook by including teens

Google is widening the potential user base for Google+ by lowering the age requirement from 18 to 13 years old -- a move that could help it grow in Facebook's shadow. Last week, Bradley Horowitz, vice president of product at Google+, announced the change in a blog post. He noted that Google wants to help teens share with their friends, while also helping them keep from over-sharing, especially with strangers. "Teens and young adults are the most active Internet users on the planet," wrote Horowitz. "And surprise, surprise: they're also human beings who enjoy spending time with friends and family. Put these two things together and it's clear that teens will increasingly connect online." Teens were allowed onto the site immediately. Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research, noted that by opening up the social network to younger users, Google+ is instantly widening its potential user base. And with an estimated 62 million users now, Google+ still has a long way to go to catch up with Facebook, which has a reported 800 million users. "This will help Google+ add more users to the site and that's important right now," said Gottheil. "Facebook has a lot of younger users. That's how they got their start. This just makes sense for Google+." Right now, Facebook requires that users be at least 13 years old to join the social network. However, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckeberg said last year that he'd like to lower that minimum age limit. While he wasn't actively working on that issue at the time, he said he'd like to study it more. Horowitz pointed out in his blog post that Google+ is adding security safeguards to help protect teens that might be joining the site. "The difference between friends, acquaintances and strangers is a crucial one -- especially for teens," he wrote. "Google+ includes circles to help people manage their different relationships, but we're going a step further for our younger users." Horowitz explained that with Google+, teens can share privately with their circles or publicly with the world. "Posting something for everyone to see is a big deal, however, so when teens try and share outside their circles, we encourage them to think before they post," he added. Google+ is set up by default to only allow people in teens' circles to contact them and it's designed features that enable teens to block someone with just one or two clicks. Google also is setting up special rules around Google+ Hangouts. "Google+ Hangouts bring people together using live multi-person video, and the results range from heartwarming to awe-inspiring," wrote Horowitz. "However, we recognize that connecting face-to-face is special and serious, so if a stranger outside a teen's circles joins the Hangout, we temporarily remove the young adult, and give them a chance to rejoin." download microsoft net framework windows vista download hp officejet 4500 all-in-one printer driver for win xp download redbox wreck it ralph download rupee foradian font for windows xp download da elbet gozlum komur oluruz oluruz download pdf helper for mozilla firefox download smadav 8 7 pro key serial number download f1 championship season 2000 mac download youtube videos as mp3 audio download microsoft .net framework 4 manual

Why Google+ will become Google's only product

I finally understand Google's uberstrategy for dominating the future of online everything. Here it is: Coalesce all of its best products into a single super product that marginalizes smaller rivals to the point of irrelevance and clobbers Facebook with total superiority. That single super product is Google+. Why features beat products The most important distinction in Silicon Valley is this: Is it a product or a feature? Venture capitalists have to be experts in this distinction, because an IT tool that can't stand on its own as a viable, marketable product usually isn't worth investing in. Digital cameras were among the hottest categories of consumer electronics gadgets from the late 90s until fairly recently. A point-and-shoot, pocket-size digital camera was a hot product. But now it's transitioning from a product to a feature -- of cellphones. Mainstream smartphones like the iPhone 4S and the HTC Evo 4G have 8-megapixel cameras, quality optics and HD video capability. People who have smartphones already have decent cameras. That's why sales of point-and-shoot digital cameras are plateauing and will inevitably decline over the next few years. Here's another example: In the 1990s, zip file-compression utilities were a major part of the software industry. People used to pay for them. But in 1998, Microsoft made zip support a feature of Windows. And in 2004, Apple made zip a feature of Mac OS X. Zip compression has been marginalized as a product. You don't see a lot of startups wanting to get into the zip racket. People used to seek out and download instant messaging applications like PowWow, ICQ and AOL Instant Messenger. IM was a serious product category. Today, chat has become a feature of Facebook, Gmail, Android and the iPhone. IM has been marginalized as a discrete product category. Once something is a successful feature, it can usually no longer thrive as a product. And that's how Google plans to dominate the future of the Internet. Many of the product categories for online services will be marginalized as Google makes these technologies mere features of Google+. How Google products become Google+ features Google+ launched as an invitation-only "project" on June 28 -- just five and a half months ago. It opened to the public Sept. 20 -- less than three months ago. From the beginning, Google+ had already integrated features that were available elsewhere as products. Hangouts, for example, offers most of the functionality of Skype. Google+ also came integrated with Picasa, a photo management service that Google acquired in 2004. Google+ also incorporated, to some degree, Google's Gmail application, as well as chat. The Sparks feature represented a partial integration of Google News. But since the launch, Google has "integrated" a dozen more major products into Google+, turning them into de facto features. This process starts with a minor integration and evolves into a major one. The +1 button, which preceded Google+, was integrated into the service Aug. 24. When you find a +1 button on any website, clicking it offers a share box for publishing a link on Google+. These +1 shares are called "Snippets" by Google. download unity web player para linux download temple run brave for armv6 download weheartit app for blackberry download linksys wrt54g v5 software download adobe flash player for plugin download flash videos online chrome download google chrome windows 7 2012 download zoosk liz meet brad download temple run iphone gratis download kodak remote administration software