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Angry Birds Rio is only free today and only from the Amazon Appstore

The Amazon Appstore opened it’s doors today. This should concern you, my fellow Android user, as they are going to be giving away a free app every day. This isn’t just another random free app. It’s the ability to download an app for free that otherwise would have cost you money.

Today’s free app? Angry Birds Rio. This is a special version of Angry Birds that ties into their upcoming movie, or so I hear. The Amazon Appstore works just about as smooth as the official Google Android Market, but only if you’re on a carrier besides AT&T.

For you AT&T folks, there is a work-around. My fellow FriendFeeder @rodfather points out this article on Android Central that should help you get some Amazon Appstore love.

For everyone else, check out the Amazon Appstore and grab your free copy of Angry Birds Rio….or whatever app is free for the day at the time you’re reading this.

via You do realize that Angry Birds Rio is only free… – Rah – Rahsheen – Sheen – FriendFeed

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Are there any Black owned mobile app Startups, that Robert Scoble and other pro bloggers have done interviews on? – Quora

 

 

 

 

 

I happen to be black and this is by no means a ‘gotcha’ question. I’m a big fan of Robert Scoble’s YouTube Channel and also follow major tech blogging sites such as Mashable & Engadget, but have yet to see Black owned mobile app development company interviews. This leads me to believe either they are non existent or may not be considered newsworthy by the major tech blogosphere. I am quite interest in an honest response to my sincere query.

via (22) Are there any Black owned mobile app Startups, that Robert Scoble and other pro bloggers have done interviews on? – Quora.

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Test Your Knowledge Of Startup Investing with Angel Trivia Daily

An iPhone app created by two Seattle entrepreneurs, Joe Wallin and Bill Carleton, tests your knowledge of startup investing. It’s called Angel Trivia Daily and poses such burning questions as:

  • Who famously blogged, “Angel List is like Dangerous Sex with Super Models for Virgin Nerds?”
  • When should you consider filing a Section 83(b) election?
  • If your pre-money is $3M, and you raise $1M, what is your post-money?

The app challenges you with daily multiple choice questions covering “topics and terminology from the arcane to the commonly misunderstood to the lawyer-geeky.” Definitely a good look if you’re in the startup game and need to make sure your knowledge of investment terms and concepts is on point. It also includes questions that test your knowledge of who the players are in the startup and investment space.

This should definitely help keep your head in the game as an entrepreneur. Get Apple Trivia Daily from the Apple App Store for 99 cents.

via TechCrunch


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Firefox 4 Available for Download Ahead of Official Release

Firefox 4 is not set to be officially released until later today, but has been available for download from the Mozilla releases FTP server since last night. As we previously reported, Firefox 4 has been tweaked to look a lot like Chrome. It features hardware acceleration and the JaegerMonkey JavaScript engine along with extra goodies like tab organization with Panorama and App Tabs.

Mozilla has asked Download Squad to mention that “this might not turn out to be the actual final build. It’s still going through QA right now, and something might come up.” No big deal if you want to jump the gun, though. Your browser will update to the latest version if any changes are made for the final release. You won’t get the full Firefox 4 experience until the final release, which will probably include a “pretty first-run splash screen” and other goodies.

If you’re a mobile browser kind of person, Firefox 4 Release Candidate is available for Android and Maemo. This release brings faster scrolling, better responsiveness with Firefox Sync, and overall improved user experience. This release includes features like Firefox Sync, Awesome Screen, tabbed browsing, and Firefox Add-ons to your mobile device. See the list of supported devices and download from the Android Market or on your Maemo device.


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Amazon Appstore Launches with Daily Paid Apps for Free

Amazon launches their Android Appstore today. Notice that I didn’t say “Amazon App Store” with a space and capital S. Not sure if this is some way to get around the fact that Apple is suing them over the name “App Store” or if Amazon just thought it was cuter this way.

Before I tell you how to access the App Store, there are a few things you should know. Amazon’s pay structure allows them to offer most paid apps at a discount compared to the official Google Android Market. Also, Amazon is giving away a paid app for free on the daily. This should keep Android users coming back on the regular. Today’s free paid app is Angry Birds Rio, which would normally cost you a whopping 99 cents, but Amazon is giving it away.

To browse the Amazon Android Appstore (not App Store), you can hit the first link in this sentence. The web interface uses some fancy Flash magic to let you play with the apps in the browser before you install them.

You can also download the Amazon Android Appstore App directly to your device by scanning the QR Code to the left or visiting http://amzn.to/getamazonappstore from your Android device. Be sure to enable installation of apps from Unknown Sources in Settings->Applications. Check out the full installation instructions, including video.

Installing apps from the web interface is almost as smooth as from the Android Market web interface. If you’re logged into Amazon on the web and in the Android App, you will see a list of apps you’ve chosen to install in My Apps on your device. It will be interesting to see what effect this has on the Android App ecosystem.

via TechCrunch, Engadget



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Snoop Dogg, Serena Williams, and Other Celebs Share How They Tweet

Today marks Twitter’s 5th birthday and they’ve launched a new discovery page to help new and existing users figure out who they should follow. The page includes a video with a star-studded cast. Everyone from Hilary Clinton and Gary Vaynerchuck to Dana White and Martha Stewart share how they use the popular micro-blogging service.

Serena shares how she follows her favorite band Green Day on Twitter so she can keep up with what they’re doing. Snoop Dogg admits following his “home girl” Martha Stewart “because she keeps it stuttered and buttered, baked and flaked, and she love to wake and bake with the big Snoop Dogg.”

There are some very interesting and intelligent people in the video and also listed on the site so that you can explore their profiles and follow them. If none of these popular people tickle your fancy, you can browse the general categories to “discover your world. ”

Even though Twitter has gone mainstream, most people still haven’t a clue what to do with it. This is a good move for Twitter in leveraging these celebrity personalities to give people ideas. Check out the video below.

via TechCrunch


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Will Smith Replaces 30 Stolen Computers at Philly High School

On Feb 21st, during the wee hours, a high school was robbed. The thieves made off with goods valuing around $80,000: 58 laptops, 2 desktops, and one LED projector. The two 17-year old students who executed the theft have since been caught, but only half of the laptops and the projector have been recovered.

Will Smith, born and raised in Philly, has decided to step in to give back to his community. In cooperation with the Charlie Mack Cares organization, the Will and Jada Smith Family Foundation will donate 29 Apple laptops and one desktop to the West Philadelphia High School.

This break-in was the second at West Philly High this year and is the latest in a string of robberies from Philadelphia public schools. In total, 350 computers have been stolen, valued at half a million dollars. We can only hope that some security measure have been taken to protect this generous donation.

via BV Black Spin


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AT&T Only Winner in T-Mobile Acquisition

News broke this weekend about a potential merger between T-Mobile and AT&T, who would acquire the company from Deutsche Telekom for $39 billion in cash and stock. This is just the first step in a process that may take as long as a year pending regulatory approval. As Sprint puts it, if the deal goes through, the market will be “dramatically altered.”

Obviously, this is a definite win for AT&T. Acquiring T-Mobile will add density to their existing network and possibly change the perception that they are unreliable. T-Mobile has been one of the most vocal companies speaking out against AT&T’s network with their latest ad campaign, depicting AT&T as an aging and out of shape business riding on the back of the iPhone. AT&T would also jump so far ahead of Sprint, the third largest carrier in the US, that Sprint would probably never catch up.

And what of T-Mobile? While they have never had the largest network, they have remained a force of change in the market. They’ve experimented with new technologies and handsets while helping keep prices in check by offering cheap plans. All that goes out the window once AT&T consumes them. There aren’t even plans for a T-Mobile iPhone.

While AT&T is attempting to spin this as a win for the consumer, we lose for many of the same reasons T-Mobile does. In fact, you can also through in the handset makers and wireless equipment companies. We will all be forced to deal with one entity. This means that handset makers and wireless equipment companies have lost a customer and AT&T will leverage this for their own benefit. Less competition is almost never good.

One of the more interesting angles on this story is what will happen to Google’s Android. While many are saying it could go either way, I think it will most likely go south. Verizon has already launched their own Android App store and AT&T will most likely do the same. With less competition, it will be easier for them to shove whatever they like down the consumer’s throats.

When it comes down to it, there is one way I think T-Mobile can come out of this a winner. If the deal is not approved or doesn’t go through for any reason, AT&T will still have to pay a “breakup fee.” This is similar to the early termination fee for breaking your wireless agreement. T-Mobile will get $3 billion, access to some of AT&T’s AWS spectrum, and a roaming agreement.

via GigaOm, Business Insider, Engadget


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Leads are Unproductive and a Waste of Time

Business folks put a lot of focus on leads and sales. Sales are important, that’s how you make money, but leads are usually pointless. Think about all the methods you’ve used to generate leads. They probably worked great for creating a list of random names and contact info, but how many sales did they lead you to?

Leads don’t mean sales. What you need are fans. Fans will buy whatever you put out just because it’s you. They think you are the best artist, writer, brand, blogger, leader, and software developer on the planet. Fans mean sales. When you need venture capital on your developing company, click this site for more information.

Instead of following the mantra that sales and marketing is a numbers game, try becoming valuable and visible. Instead of Always Be Closing, how about always be informative? Always be helpful? Always be real and keep it 100? (that’s “one hunnit”, for the uninitiated)

When you work to make yourself an asset instead of just an ass, people will seek you out. Instead of you asking for the sale, you may find them asking to be sold.

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How I Accidentally Upgraded to Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread

 

It was just another day in the office, I was sipping my coffee, going through emails, and trying to get re-acquainted with Feedly in between taking tech support calls from clients. Eventually, I stumbled across a post from MobileLuv talking about the latest CyanogenMod 7 RC2.

I knew I would probably want to install that, but I got to thinking about my original rooting experience. My Evo had been running Myn’s Warm TwoPointTwo for a little while after I’d used this handy-dandy Rooting for Dummies thread a few of my awesome Twitter friends sent me (sorry, don’t remember who it was, but big-ups). I won’t say it was a harrowing experience, but I was definitely on edge with my baby on the operating table (if you don’t think of your phone as a close friend, relative, or partner…you have the wrong device).

So, anyways, you’ll have to remember that I’m doing a million things at once. I’m not really reading as much as scanning and my eyes fell on the phrase “ROM Manager.” I’m thinking, “Oh yeah, I have that. Let me fire that puppy up and see what it do.” ROM Manager came as a package deal when I rooted my phone and I’m glad it did. I went in and first tried to Check for ROM Updates, at which point I was reminded that I hadn’t paid to be a premium user.

Mind you, I have no idea what I’m doing at this point. Just randomly hitting buttons. Download ROM looked like a winner, so I hit and, CHA-CHING, there goes CyanogenMod right at the top. Tapped that and found the link to the RC2 ROM I’d just read about.

Now, here is where things get a little fuzzy because I think I was trying to walk someone through something on the phone while composing a blog post and playing Lord of Ultima. I know I hit the button to download, and I think it said something like “Prepare for Flashing.” I obviously switched into 12 o’clock flasher mode and just kept hitting buttons.

The next thing I know, my phone has rebooted into Recovery mode. I’m busy with a client at this point, so all I saw were green progress bars when I glanced over. I tried to pay attention to what the client was saying, but the sinking feeling in my stomach was a bit distracting.

A short time later, my Evo rebooted again and spent an excruciatingly long time on the “htc Evo” boot logo. I thought it was a wrap, but I eventually saw the CyanogenMod animation spinning on my display. I breathed a sigh of relief and started to get excited about what gems I’d find in Gingerbread. I was not disappointed at all. It was like I had a brand-new phone, which may be a story for another day.

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Tech Week in Review 3-18-2011

Android Loads Web Pages 52% Faster Than Android…Kinda

A study done by Canadian company Blaze Software found that Android smoked iPhone when it comes to loading web pages. Comprised of 45,000 tests, Blaze called it the “largest ever research study of smart phone browser performance.” The problem is that the results are completely bogus. As many are aware, Apple made significant speed improvements to Safari in iOS 4.3, but these improvements do not apply to UIWebView, iPhone’s Safari-based embedded browser. Since they didn’t actually test the iPhone’s browser, the results of the study don’t hold much value. Blaze admits they made an assumption and say they “would be more than willing to create a new report” if Apple applies their optimizations to the embedded browser. After this glaring error, I doubt anyone will be looking to Blaze Software for any further testing.

Bing Bashed for Quake Tweet

In another textbook social media error by a major brand, Bing has apologized for a tweet posted about the Japan quake. Their apology reads:
“We apologize the tweet was negatively perceived. Intent was to provide an easy way for people to help Japan. We have donated $100K.”
In their original tweet, it appeared the company was attempting to leverage the disaster in Japan for their own selfish and promotional purposes. The original tweet offered up a $1 donation to Japan for every retweet:
“How you can #SupportJapan – http://binged.it/fEh7iT. For every retweet, @bing will give $1 to Japan quake victims, up to $100K.”
The original tweet is a standard method of promotion on Twitter. You offer user’s an incentive for retweeting your message. It includes a popular hashtag, Bing’s Twitter user name, and a link to Microsoft’s Coporate Citizenship page which covers the disaster and provides ways to donate. The problem here is that asking for retweets and promoting your brand on the back of a tragedy is in extremely poor taste.

Twitter Turns on Developers

It looks like Twitter has decided to bite the hands that fed them. The Twitter ecosystem, made up of thousands of apps across all platforms and devices, has been a major factor in the micro-blogging service’s rise to power.
Now, realizing how much of that power lies with the developers instead of with the company, Twitter appears to be attempting to remedy the situation by bulldozing their developer community. It’s a logical business move, but it remains to be seen if the backlash will be worth it.
via GigaOm

Google Circles Not Announced at SXSW

The web was on fire with rumors that Google would be launching a social networking platform called Circles at SXSW. They came mostly from a post by ReadWriteWeb, which talked about the launch and some of the features to expect. Of course, no such announcement happened. According to TechCrunch, social is just too big a factor for Google to announce via a splashy press event. While Google Circles may be a reality, we probably won’t see a big announcement for it. Google will work in the background to add features to their existing properties which will serve to tie everything together.

Make Twitter More Secure with HTTPS

Twitter has added a new feature that will make your experience slightly more secure. You’ve been able to use Twitter over a secure connection for some time now by simply going to https://twitter.com instead of just using “http.” Now, Twitter has added an “Always Use HTTPS” option so that you no longer have to think about it. This is especially important when using an unsecured WiFi connection. HTTPS will now automatically be used, regardless of your settings, when you’re logging into Twitter and when using the iPad and iPhone mobile apps. You can find the new feature in your settings.

via Twitter

IE9 Does 2.3 Million Downloads in First 24 hrs

The Windows Team blog reports that IE 9 was downloaded 2.35 million times in the first 24 hrs. Released on Monday night, the Microsoft browser was doing 27 downloads every second, or over 240 downloads every 9 seconds. Pretty big numbers for Microsoft, especially when compared with the 1 million downloads of IE9 Beta.


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Whatsupedia Lets You Share Links with People Just Like You

Whatsupedia is a new service that helps you find and share interesting links based on your specific interests. The site also allows you to comment on and discuss those links. The site works in two different ways:

  • For content discovery, you can drill down into the links based on specific communities or categories. Currently, there are five: Profession, Interest, City, Culture, and Orientation. You can choose any combination of these communities to find exactly what you want. For example, something like LGBTQ+Hackers+Ruby on Rails+New York, you would only see links and discussions for LGBTQ folks in New York who like Hacking Ruby on Rails. Once you find a community you like, you simply Favorite it for later.
  • For sharing content, you would choose your community and submit links you think others in the community will like. This helps you gain influence within that community as users vote on your links.

Whatsupedia is basically a Hacker News for people who may not necessarily be hackers. Its wider focus should make it of interest to a larger user base. The layout may seem familiar to Hacker News fans. It’s simple and clean with a focus on the actual content of the site. As you navigate the site, labels give you direction on what to do.

The idea for the site came about as the Founder, Jamil Abreu, was planning a conference in 2007 for Dominican college students. As Jamil puts it, “Facebook connects you to your social network, but what about the people interested the things you share that ARENT on your friends list?” A sentiment that many of us have thought at one time or another.

The site just launched, so go check it out and share some links. Tell us what you think here or speak with the founder via live chat on the site.


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Firefox 4 Final Set for March 22nd

Early this year, Firefox 4 Beta 9 was released with a projected Final release for February. It wasn’t until March 9th that we saw a Firefox 4 Release Candidate. Now, AfterDawn reports that the Firefox 4 Final release will be available March 22nd. The new version of the popular browser includes enhanced performance and stability, increased HTML5 support (including Google’s WebM video format), and a revamped plug-in architecture called JetPack.

More than 70 percent of Firefox Add-ons are now compatible with Firefox 4, which should make upgrading much easier for users. You can also synchronize your Firefox history, bookmarks, open tabs, passwords and form data across multiple computers and mobile devices.

There are also a few extra goodies like Panorama, which allows you to drag and drop tabs into manageable groups to organize, name and arrange them in a visual way. Chrome was the first browser to allow you to turn web pages into apps and Firefox can now do the same. App Tabs are pinned tabs that can notify you of updates (ie. new emails, tweets, etc.).

Following the trend of browsers like IE9 and Chrome, Firefox 4 features a minimalistic and clean interface. While it mostly seems to be falling in line with its competition, the addition of hardware-acceleration may give it an edge as both Chrome and IE 9 only feature partial acceleration.

via AfterDawn, Mozilla


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Android Apps for March Madness

It’s March Madness and sports fans everywhere are buzzing about the NCAA Tournament. With just about everyone carrying around a smartphone these days, you’ll want to know how to use it to keep track of your favorites. There apps for tracking news, scores, creating pools, and even talking junk. Here are a few you can download for Android.

CBS Sports Mobile

The CBS Sports Mobile app gives you scores, news, and complete control of CBSSports.com fantasy teams from the palm of your hand. The app has only recently been updated for March Madness, so you can catch the latest scores and stats for the NCAA Tournament. If you tried it recently and didn’t see the NCAA features, you might want to give this app another look.

Bracket Tracker

Bracket Tracker makes it easy to enter your brackets and compete against your friends. Run your own March Madness pools or join existing ones with friends. A simple app, that can help you make the NCAA Tournament a little more interesting.

College Basketball Scoreboard

This app brings also brings college basketball scores, schedules and news stories to your mobile. It covers just about any conference and tournament you can think of. Everything is organized by conference so you can keep track of your favorite teams and their rivals at a glance. For those who like to talk trash, College Basketball Scoreboard makes it easy to share your scores to Facebook, Twitter, and Email from within the app.

NCAA March Madness Fan Zone

The NCAA March Madness Fan Zone app integrates your conversations with real-time NCAA basketball scores, news and rankings through the regular season and NCAA Final Four Tournament. Not only does this app integrate with Facebook, Twitter, and SMS, but it also has group chat features and lets you easily connect with Fans of all Division I teams. There is also the option to upload photos in your posts.

VCU Daily and VCU Mobile

VCU is the hot topic for March Madness and you can keep track of them a few different ways. In addition to the apps above, there is VCU Mobile. This app lets you find out all about Virginia Commonwealth University and includes a section for Athletics where you can see the latest scores and upcoming schedule. There is also VCU Daily, which one commenter says is “A must for a VCU fan!” The app keeps it simple, bringing you all you need to know about VCU basketball in a simple interface.