Tech Mania: Apple’s iPhone still best-selling smartphone in U.S., Android catching up, says analyst plus 2 more articles

Apple’s iPhone still best-selling smartphone in U.S., Android catching up, says analyst
Microsoft Windows 8 Tablet coming soon – in the Works
Facebook Turns On Facial Recognition, steps to disable it

Apple’s iPhone still best-selling smartphone in U.S., Android catching up, says analyst

Posted: 10 Jun 2011 05:01 AM PDT

Apple's iPhone still best-selling smartphone in U.S., Android catching up, says analyst is a post from: Tech Mania.Check out more of the latest news by Subscribing to feed

Morgan Keegan analyst Tavis McCourt said Apple's iPhone is still the best-selling smartphone in the U.S. despite being almost a year old. The analyst says he recently spoke with 50 U.S. retailers about smartphones, and he has concluded that Apple's iPhone still sits at the top of the pile in terms of sales. McCourt does note, however, that Android phones are quickly gaining ground. He says collective sales of Android phones at Verizon Wireless are "on par" with iPhone sales, though he thought the iPhone's lack of 4G LTE compatibility would have caused it to fall behind Android phones.

"We had assumed that Verizon's 4G launches would slow down iPhone demand, but that was not evident in the stores we spoke with," McCourt wrote. "Overall, we believe iPhone momentum remains strong at Verizon." The analyst also states that iPhone is still the No. 1 smartphone at AT&T, though sales of Android devices are "quickly catching up."

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Source : Barrons

Via BGR

By Blogsdna

Microsoft Windows 8 Tablet coming soon – in the Works

Posted: 10 Jun 2011 04:50 AM PDT

Microsoft Windows 8 Tablet coming soon – in the Works is a post from: Tech Mania.Check out more of the latest news by Subscribing to feed

There are so many tablets coming out in the market from different brands but none of them have been able to give a strong competition to Apple’s iPad 2 but Microsoft is also joining the league of tablets as we have seen before the demo of the Windows 8 UI video.Digitimes is reporting that Microsoft will possibly collab with Texas Instruments to design a tablet device which will be powered by TI's OMAP 4470 chip to give a strong challenge to the dominance of iPad in the market. In all possibilities, the software giant will market their new Windows 8 tablet in almost the same way as they marketed Xbox 360 or Zune.

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Things are not very sure at the moment so Redmond is not so confident about the project which is in its preliminary stage. So it is avoiding much fanfare about it.So lets hope MSFt can show some serious competition to Apple.

Source : Digitimes

By Blogsdna

Facebook Turns On Facial Recognition, steps to disable it

Posted: 10 Jun 2011 02:49 AM PDT

Facebook Turns On Facial Recognition, steps to disable it is a post from: Tech Mania.Check out more of the latest news by Subscribing to feed

Facebook launched the Facial recognition feature recently and was turned on by default without a notice and for this the security firm Sophos expressed concern.The social-networking site acknowledged that it should have been more communicative about the service’s roll-out, but did not announce plans to make it opt-in.

“Now might be a good time to check your Facebook privacy settings as many Facebook users are reporting that the site has enabled the option in the last few days without giving users any notice,” Sophos’ Graham Cluley wrote in a blog post.

Back in December, Facebook announced plans for facial-recognition technology intended to make it easier for people to tag photos of friends. Facebook said it would examine newly uploaded photos and compare them to other photos in which you or your friends are tagged in order to make tagging suggestions.

When it was announced, Facebook said it would test the service and listen to feedback before a full rollout. “We should have been more clear with people during the roll-out process when this became available to them,” a Facebook spokesman said in a Tuesday statement.

Facebook is “rather creepily … pushing your friends to go ahead and tag you,” Cluley wrote. “Remember, Facebook does not give you any right to pre-approve tags. Instead the onus is on you to untag yourself in any photo a friend has tagged you in. After the fact.”
Facebook, however, said the tool is simply intended to help users speed up a process that is “done more than 100 million times a day.” Tag suggestions are made only when people upload photos and it only suggests friends.

“Tag Suggestions are now available in most countries and we’ll post further updates to our blog over time,” the Facebook spokesman said.

If you don’t want facial recognition turned on, go to your Facebook account’s privacy settings, click on “Customize settings,” go to “Things others share” and find the option for “Suggest photos of me to friends.” To see if it’s enabled, click “Edit Settings” and the box should either say “enabled” or “disabled.”

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In April, Cluley published an open letter to Facebook that outlined three fundamental steps Facebook needed to take to better protect its users. That included a request for a “privacy by default” setting.

“Unfortunately, once again, Facebook seems to be sharing personal information by default,” Cluley wrote today. “The onus should not be on Facebook users having to “opt-out” of the facial recognition feature, but instead on users having to ‘opt-in.’”