Sprint to set the bar, 4G devices into 2011

Sprint phones

 The HTC EVO Shift 4G is a WiMax-enabled Android smartphone. Although the Shift is the successor to the HTC EVO 4G, it differs in design and size, as the Shift comes with sliding QWERTY keyboard and a smaller display.

Sprint’s CEO Dan Hesse said, “Sprint will continue to set the bar for feature-rich and customer-friendly 4G devices into 2011… Our proven leadership as a 4G pioneer has allowed our customers to enjoy 4G from Sprint first, and these new products exemplify Sprint's commitment to put industry-leading performance and capabilities in the hands of our customers.”

The announcement of a new smartphone from Sprint is a direct challenge to Verizon. Verizon launched its 4G service in December and is the country’s largest wireless carrier, and is expected to introduce four smartphones designed to work on the 4G network. But the move to introduce a cheaper 4G-enabled phone may alter the prospects for Verizon, as the Shift has all the features of other high-end smartphones and competes on price.

The Shift is also equipped with MiFi, which enables the new device to run widgets and Web apps right on the device. It also acts as server for files stored on a MicroSD memory card. The MiFi is priced at $49.99 with a two year contract and will be available on Feb. 27.

Sprint says the Shift allows up to eight Wi-Fi-enabled devices to connect to the 3G/4G wireless network.

Information source: Google Search

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Sprint to set the bar, 4G devices into 2011

The two ticket-holders will split the $355 million dollar jackpot

 Three Mega Millions lottery tickets sold in North Carolina are worth $250,000, but the true winning tickets were sold in Idaho and Washington state. The two ticket-holders will split the $355 million dollar jackpot.

The prize is the fourth-largest in U.S. history.

The winning numbers are 15, 47, 04, 25, 08 and the mega ball is 42.

Prizes in the amounts of $250,000 will be handed out to 67 people for matching five numbers but not the Mega Ball. 323 people win $10,000 for matching four numbers plus the Mega Ball.

Inner Story
Businesses that sell Mega Millions lottery tickets were especially busy around Eastern Carolina as customers hoped to take home the $355 million dollar jackpot.

The money up for grabs is the most since NC started offering the drawing last year.

The winning numbers are 15, 47, 04, 25, 08 and the mega ball is 42.

In Jacksonville Tuesday customers flooded the Han-Dee Hugo's to buy tickets. Some claim the store is lucky because it has has some lottery winners in the past, including a $200,000 winner.

There were also long lines in Greenville as people bought what they hoped to be the golden ticket.

Celido Cheng put down a hundred bucks he and his co-workers forked up to better their odds. "We pulled our money together with my friends and five employees hoping that we will win."

One store clerk told us some people have spent as much as $500 on Mega Millions tickets.

The odds to win: 1 in 176 million. If there isn't a winner Friday's drawing would be worth 480 million dollars.

Information source: Google Search

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The two ticket-holders will split the $355 million dollar jackpot

Ford Motor Company has reached the highest of highs with the Model T, Taurus and Mustang

 In business for 107 years, Ford Motor Company has reached the highest of highs with the Model T, Taurus and Mustang. In spite of successes, Ford’s journey also included tribulations such as the Edsel division disaster and a $12.7 billion loss resulting from a dismal 2006 year. Four years after that latest misfortune, Ford Motor Company is now the idolized automaker in the United States and even the world thanks to a completely refreshed business model. The 12 months of 2010 serves as a period of redemption for Ford as they increased sales and market position.

Sales grew across the vehicle spectrum for Ford as cars, trucks and sport utility crossovers all showed consistent growth in 2010. Ford brand car sales have exploded to 591,210 units equating to a 21.5 percent improvement over the 2009 calendar year. Including Mercury and Lincoln, car sales were up 17 percent accounting for a total 696,918 sold. Leading all Ford products in sales is multi-faceted Ford Fusion accounting for 219,219 cars. Set for a redesigned version arriving this spring, the Focus still found 172,421 buyers to be the second-best selling car for the Ford brand.

However, as much as Ford dedicated itself as a car company, the truck division still remains important to the American automaker. Demonstrating the largest year-to-year change upwards by 27.1 percent, the F-Series pickup truck continues to firmly lead every model in sales with 528,349 moving off dealership lots.

Ford motors Logo

Besides cars and trucks, crossover vehicles remained popular within the Ford Motor Company product for 2010. Accounting for 441,925 units, the crossover and utility lineup for the Ford brand was led by the Ford Escape which accounted for 43% of the total vehicle type sales. Showing an amusing bounce over the previous 12-month period, the largely unchanged full-sized Ford Expedition enjoyed a 17.9 percent rise in sales as 2010 indicates that some American motorists are selecting to return to habits existing before the 2008 gasoline price spike.

Recently announcing a renewed commitment to their Lincoln brand, the Ford Motor Company’s 2010 sales figures showed a modest 3.6 percent rise. While the Lincoln MKT has been criticized by industry insiders in late 2010 for less than expected sales, the 7-passenger luxury utility vehicle attracted 7,435 buyers. The Lincoln luxury brand will be planning to pump up MKT sales by availing the large crossover for fleet use in 2011, replacing the outgoing Lincoln Town Car.

n the final year of Mercury, the wind-down of the brand concludes with 93,195 vehicles sold, roughly a 1,000 unit increase over the 2009 sales. In fact, with exception to the Sable which was discontinued for 2010, all Mercury vehicles enjoyed a mild sales increase including the Grand Marquis.

Rejoicing with 2010 numbers being a major improvement over the difficult 2009 automotive sales, the numbers paint a picture of a much different industry. Compared to the 2006 model year, vehicle sale numbers are consistently lower within the Ford Motor Company. Taking previous Ford brands Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo out of the count, total Ford product sales is down by almost 800,000 vehicles. Of note, the 2010 Ford F-Series pickup truck sales were down almost 268,000 units from 2006 tabulations. Though selling fewer vehicles, Ford Motor Company admits their motivations is to maintain profitability.

While Ford’s intentions was to maintain itself as a financially-stable car company, the American automaker did score a major win. In 2006, Ford Motor Company lost its industry standing as the 2nd highest-selling automaker in the United States to Toyota. Thanks to the revitalized Ford and with Toyota suffering through a series of high-profile recalls, the United States auto ranking once again has Ford in the second-highest spot behind General Motors.

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Ford Motor Company has reached the highest of highs with the Model T, Taurus and Mustang

Auto Industry Success Ground

General Motors Co. was the first of the major automakers to report Tuesday, saying that December sales rose 15.5% from a year earlier, to 223,932 vehicles, after factoring out the Pontiac, Hummer, Saturn and Saab brands it closed or sold as part of its bankruptcy reorganization during the summer of 2009. Of its remaining brands, Buick, Cadillac and GMC posted double-digit gains, while Chevrolet was up 9.1% for the month. Including the discontinued lines, GM's December sales rose 7.5%, to 224,185.

For the year, sales of GM's core brands rose 21.3%, to 2.2 million vehicles. Including the discontinued lines, sales rose 6.3%.

The year marked some dramatic shifts in the industry.

Ford Motor Co. topped Toyota Motor Corp. to become the second-largest auto seller in the U.S., a position it last held in 2006. Ford captured about 16.7% of the market, up more than a full percentage point, according to George Magliano, an analyst at IHS Automotive. Toyota fell to about 15.1%, down more than a point and half, he said.

"That is a big shift. Toyota still has these big recall programs, and that has really hurt them. Ford has benefited from the problems at GM and Chrysler. They took the government [bailout] money and Ford didn't. It became the American manufacturer of choice," Magliano said.

Audi of America, Hyundai Motor Co. and its sister company, Kia Motors Corp., and Subaru of America all set U.S. sales records and gained market share despite the slow pace of auto sales overall. Volkswagen of America had its best year since 2003.

Analysts were especially impressed by the growth at South Korea's Hyundai and its Kia sibling.

"We used to call the top makers the big six -- the domestic three and the Japanese three -- and now all of our analysis is based on the big seven and includes Hyundai," said Jesse Toprak, an analyst at TrueCar.com.

He said Hyundai has made the leap from a brand for people "who couldn't buy or afford anything else" to one that offers autos "people choose to buy based on the merits of the products."

Magliano said that when the final numbers come in, the Hyundai/Kia combination might edge out Nissan North America Inc. to become the sixth-biggest auto seller in the U.S. IHS Automotive estimates that if that shift did not happen this year, it will by the end of 2015 and that Hyundai will also near the market share of Chrysler Group in future years.

Regardless of the brand, most automakers experienced more robust sales in the final months of last year, he said.

"The strong fourth quarter resulted from consumers who were looking -- especially the upper end -- to go out and purchase finally. It was just pent-up demand. There was not great improvement in jobs or credit availability," Magliano said.

And much was going right for the industry.

"Transactions prices went up. We weren't giving away all these vehicles. Fleet sales declined and retail sales went up, so that's a good sign, and people were buying at the upper end of the model line, not just the stripped-down vehicles," he said.

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Auto Industry Success Ground

Police may search a suspect’s cellphone after an arrest

Police may search a suspect’s cellphone after an arrest without first obtaining a warrant, the California Supreme Court has ruled.

The 5-4 decision found that police had the authority to search text messages on a phone in the pocket of Gregory Diaz, arrested on suspicion of selling Ecstasy to an informant in the back seat of his car, according to the Recorder and the San Francisco Chronicle. One text read “6 4 80,” a possible reference to an $80 price for six pills.

The Ohio Supreme Court reached the opposite conclusion in a December 2009 ruling on cellphone searches, according to the Chronicle story.

The California opinion (PDF) relied on Supreme Court decisions from the 1970s allowing searches of cigarette packs and clothing seized during an arrest. Under the precedents, "this loss of privacy allows police not only to seize anything of importance they find on the arrestee's body ... but also to open and examine what they find," the court said.

Dissenters argued the majority opinion gives the police "carte blanche, with no showing of exigency, to rummage at leisure through the wealth of personal and business information that can be carried on a mobile phone or handheld computer merely because the device was taken from an arrestee's person."

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Police may search a suspect’s cellphone after an arrest

Supreme Court Rules Phones Can be Searched Without a Warrant

The California Supreme Court ruled that phones obtained following an arrest can be searched without a warrant by police. The decision which had a 5 – 2 majority reasoned that phones were personal property and “immediately associated” with the suspect person.

Justice Kathryn Werdegar however wrote that the ruling violates the U.S Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, and subsequently information stored on a cell phone should not be examined without a warrant.

The debate follows an incident where Gregory Diaz was convicted on evidence found in the man’s cell phone which showed messages negotiating the price of drugs. Though his defence tried to suppress the evidence from the phone, both trial and Second District Court of Appeal held that the search was justified.

The Supreme Court used two cases as a guide to reach its decision. United States v. Robinson , 414 U.S. 218, 224 (1973) which held it was legal for the arresting officer to search the arrestees cigarette packet, and United States v. Chadwick 433 U.S. 1, 14-15 (1977), where federal agents were found to be lawful to search a foot locker.

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Supreme Court Rules Phones Can be Searched Without a Warrant

Google Adsense Creator Lands $25 Million Round

Gil Elbaz

 Andreessen Horowitz and Index Ventures have co-led a $25 million round in Factual, a data startup. Factual is founded by Gil Elbaz, who is the co-founder of Applied Semantics, which Google acquired in 2003, and used for its multi-billion dollar AdSense product.

On the strength of that reputation alone, Andreessen Horowitz and Index probably wanted to invest. Elbaz says it helped, but investors were also impressed with the product and the team building Factual.

What does Factual do? It organizes data which can be use on other companies mobile or websites. Factual is powering Facebook Places in Japan and UK. Elbaz says he sees local data being a big opportunity for the company.

Every time a company calls on Factual's API, Factual charges a fee. Depending on the size of the company, the fee can be large or small. Further, if the company is helping improve Factual's data set then Factual will charge.

Factual has "generated some revenue," says Elbaz but its focused on building the service and growing its partnerships.

Michael Ovitz and SV Angel also invested in the round. Ben Horowitz and Danny Rimer will join Factual's board.

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Google Adsense Creator Lands $25 Million Round

Cell Phones Can Cause Severe Health Hazards

Cell phones User

Various research papers suggest that even small amount of radio frequency (RF) energy produced by cell phones can cause significant DNA damage.

Revealing the link between the risk of brain cancer and mobile usage, large international study - Interphone - conducted by EU countries, Japan, Canada, New Zealand and UK, that was published in May 2010 in the International Journal of Epidemiology mentioned that excessive use of mobile phones has doubled brain tumour risk.

However, the Interphone researchers have taken an average user as a person who uses cell phone for 2 hours in a month while, in India, many people use cell phones for 1 to 2 hours a day.

Today, large population in India is using cell phones for several hours in a day without realising the severe health hazards, it can create.

A detailed report on Cell Tower Radiation - prepared by IIT Bombay's professor Girish Kumar from electrical engineering department and submitted to department of telecom, Delhi last week - that focuses on the Indian contexts of the cell usage and potential health risks, notes "When electromagnetic radiation (EMR) from a cell phone (Frequency -GSM 900 MHz) hits the head, it penetrates the skull. The radiation penetrates the skull of an adult (25%), 10-year-old (50%) and a 5-year-old (75%)."

It implies that children are more vulnerable to EMR as the energy penetrates more deeply into their smaller heads. A number of adverse health effects of radiation exposure have been documented in the report which include altered white blood cells in children; childhood leukemia, headaches, dizziness, insomnia etc.

Cell phone and Cancer

EMR frequencies can damage DNA and interfere with the natural processes involved in DNA replication and repair. Linking radiation with risk of cancers, the report says, damage to DNA is a central mechanism for developing cancer.

Heavy use of mobile phones can cause cancer. Use of mobile phones formore than 10 years give a consistent pattern of increased risk for brain cancer -glioma (cancer of the glial cells that support the central nervous system) and acoustic neuroma (a tumour in the brain on a nerve related to hearing).

The risk is highest for developing tumour on the same side of the head where the instrument is held. Increased risk of salivary gland cancer is reportedly linked to the use of mobile phones. Recent studies confirm that cell phone radiation can drastically affect male fertility.

"Studies have found 30% sperm decrease in intensive mobile phone users. Similarly, motility of the sperm was also affected by mobile phone transmissions," it says.

The report notes that radiation from cell towers and mobile phones affects skin and may cause electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS). People suffering from this condition report a range of symptoms including biting and stinging sensations; or lesions, rashes or sores.

With potential to cause Tinnitus (Ringxiety - the psychological disease of hearing phantom sound), the radiation emitted by mobile phones may damage the delicate workings of the inner ear.

For many marketing professionals, engaging in long talks over mobile phone, the problem starts with a pain in the ear that gradually develops into a ringing sensation which finally leads to hearing loss, notes the report.

Child User

Those, who are using cell phones for more than four years and for more than 30 minutes in a day, are at a higher risk of developing hearing loss, which cannot be reversed.

EMR exposure has been shown to affect the brain physiology and is also shown to be in connection with Alzheimer's and

Parkinson's disease. "Use of the handsets before bed, delays and reduces sleep, and causes headaches, confusion and depression. People living near mobile phone base stations are also at greater risk for developing neuropsychiatric problems as headache, memory loss, dizziness, tremors, muscle spasms, numbness, muscle and joint pain and sleep disturbance,"

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Cell Phones Can Cause Severe Health Hazards