Microsoft acquires start-up id8: source

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp bought start-up id8 Group R2 Studios Inc as it looks to expand further in technology focused on the home and entertainment, a person familiar with the situation said on Wednesday.id8 Group R2 Studios was started in 2011 by Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor Blake Krikorian. It recently launched a Google Android application to allow users to control home...

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Barack Obama’s AMA is Reddit’s Top Post of 2012

Do you remember that Barack Obama AMA on Reddit this past August? The one that started with “Hi, I’m Barack Obama, President of the United States. Ask me anything.”That was Reddit’s top post of 2012 with 5,598,171 page views. Reddit compiled a list of it’s top posts of the year we just said farewell to.[More from Mashable: This Is 2012 Summed Up in One Image]The site also handed out some “best of”...

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Top 5 Kids Apps: Best Games

1. Bugs and BubblesAges 3-up Overall rating: 5 out of 5 stars Why we like it: Fun, fast and good for building emerging math skills, Bugs and Bubbles contains 18 leveled sorting, classification games set in Uncle Bob’s Bubble Factory. The goal is to collect stickers by harvesting bubbles, requiring kids to apply skills of counting, sorting and remembering patterns in an elegant fashion. Need to know:...

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Five-year-old finds porn on refurbished Nintendo 3DS from GameStop

Five-year-old Brandon Giles must have been excited to receive a Nintendo 3DS for Christmas — at least, he was until he turned it on. According to 9News, Giles’ father bought a refurbished 3DS from GameStop (GME) in Colorado for his son. However, when his son turned  it on and started poking around, he found nine pornographic images of two people in a bed and asked his brother to...

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iPad mini met with ‘insatiable’ demand in China

Despite a “soft” launch with few lines and seemingly abundant availability, China is going crazy for the iPad mini according Topeka Capital Markets analyst Brian White. His checks in China and Hong Kong reveal consumers are snapping up iPad minis at rapid rates, causing short supply, even with Apple (AAPL) opening two new retail stores in Hong Kong and three in China. White wrote in a research note...

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Apple loses another copyright lawsuit in China: Xinhua

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – A Chinese court has fined Apple Inc 1 million yuan ($ 160,400) for hosting third-party applications on its App Store that were selling pirated electronic books, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Friday.Apple is to pay compensation to eight Chinese writers and two companies for violating their copyrights, the Beijing No.2 Intermediate People’s Court ruled on Thursday,...

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Temple Run was downloaded more than 2.5 million times on Christmas Day

Title Post: Temple Run was downloaded more than 2.5 million times on Christmas DayRating: 100%based on 99998 ratings.5 user reviews.Author: Fluser SeoLinkThanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comm...

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8 Festive Christmas Tumblrs, Presented by Santa Dogs

365 Days of ChristmasImage courtesy of Flickr, nicktakespicsClick here to view this gallery.[More from Mashable: 10 Holiday Stock Photos That Make Your Christmas Look Normal]If the endless loop of Wham and Mariah Carey Christmas tunes still hasn’t put you in the holiday mood, let the Internet help.SEE ALSO: 20 Amazing Christmas Surprises[More from Mashable: Now and Then: 10 Awesome Past and Present...

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The ‘Teen Mom’ Twitter Proposal

Hmm. Teen mom from Teen Mom Maci Bookout was on Twitter the other day when she received a tweet from the father of her child asking her to marry him. No lie! Ryan Edwards from Teen Dad — Huh? What’s that? There’s no such show? He’s just on Teen Mom? Oh, OK — was all “Maci Bookout marry me!” And Maci was all “Ur s–t got hacked BRO! Outta ur mind haha.” And then Ryan was all “would never let that happen.”...

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Suicide bombers attack mobile phone firms in Nigeria

KANO, Nigeria (Reuters) – Two suicide car bombers attacked the offices of mobile phone operators India’s Airtel and South Africa’s MTN on Saturday in Nigeria’s northern city of Kano, killing themselves but no civilians, police said.Islamist sect Boko Haram has previously targeted phone firms, blowing up telephone masts and offices, saying the companies help the security forces catch its members.“The...

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Facebook tests $1 fee for messages to non-friends

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Facebook says it is testing a service that will charge users $ 1 to guarantee that messages they send to people they are not connected to arrive in users’ inboxes, rather than in an often-ignored folder called “other.”Launched in 2011, the “other” folder is where Facebook routes messages it deems less relevant. Not quite spam, these include messages from people you most likely...

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What If Nothing or Nobody is to Blame for Lanza? Guns, Video Games, Autism or Authorities

What if there is nobody or nothing to blame for Adam Lanza‘s heinous acts? Other than Lanza, of course.What if school security and the school psychiatrist kept an eye on Lanza since his freshman year? The Wall Street Journal has a compelling narrative about the red flags addressed.What if he had a form of autism that has little or no link to violent behavior? Lanza may have had Asperger’s syndrome...

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$35 Raspberry Pi computer gets its own app store

Title Post: $35 Raspberry Pi computer gets its own app storeRating: 100%based on 99998 ratings.5 user reviews.Author: Fluser SeoLinkThanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comm...

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Google could emerge unscathed from federal web search probe – WSJ

(Reuters) – Google may not face any major repercussions from the Federal Trade Commission‘s (FTC) two-year-old anti-trust investigation into its web search business, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.The FTC might drop the investigation sometime this week based on voluntary changes Google will make to its search practices, rather than making the company sign...

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Valve Confirms New Game Console on Its Way

In an interview with Kotaku’s Jason Schreier at the Spike TV Video Game Awards, Valve co-founder Gabe Newell confirmed that a “living-room-friendly PC package,” designed to “compete with next-gen consoles from companies like Microsoft and Sony,” will be available for purchase starting next year.What makes a PC a PCMost of the machines Newell described, which he expected “companies” would “start selling”...

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Sweet and Lowe: How a captivating Twitter feed sealed Rob Lowe’s comeback

By Virginia Heffernan@RobLowe follows 135 people on Twitter. Among them is not @HilaryASwank, the Oscar-winning ex-wife of his brother, @ichadlowe.@RobLowe does, however, follow @ikimlowe, the new wife of his brother, who helpfully identifies herself on the site as “wife of @ichadlowe.” Would @HilaryASwank, a formidable actor who does not use Twitter very often, have consented to live in her lesser-known...

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Google Maps finally comes to iOS. Again [updated]

Apple has had quite a bumpy car ride so far with it’s mapping product. That all ends in just a couple hours, however, because late Wednesday evening Google is planning on bringing Maps back to iOS with the release of the company’s own software. AllThingsD is reporting that Google’s app will be available for download in the App Store shortly, and we’ll provide some initial thoughts on it soon after.UPDATE:...

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Recent hacking of U.N. nuclear agency not first attempt: IAEA

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A recently announced hacking of the U.N. nuclear agency’s computer servers was not the first time an attempt had been made to break into the organization’s computer system, the head of the agency said on Thursday.Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that a few months ago a group broke into the agency’s computer system and stole personal...

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Netflix says CEO’s Facebook post triggered SEC notice

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Netflix Inc said on Thursday securities regulators warned they may bring civil action against the company and its chief executive for violating public disclosure rules with a Facebook post, in a case that raises questions about how public companies communicate on social media.The high-profile Silicon Valley CEO, Reed Hastings, dismissed the contention and said he did not...

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Zynga Wants to Get into the Gambling Business

Zynga recently filed a preliminary application for a gambling license in Nevada. We’re not talking about gambling with Farmville credits, either. We’re talking cold hard cash.RELATED: Irish Olympic Athlete Accused of Betting on an OpponentGetting a gaming license is no easy task in Nevada. The paperwork that Zynga filed this week is just the beginning of a process that the company’s executives...

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