US net neutrality bill dead in the water
A proposed bill to ensure net neutrality on internet access has been killed after a lack of support from US republicans. The bill, proposed by the chairman of the House Energy & Commerce committee Henry Waxman, would have handed regulation of the internet to the FCC (which has already stated net neutrality as a goal), curbed paid preferred access by ISPs, stopped mobile internet providers from blocking sites and ensured that broadband providers were transparent in their dealings with customers.
V3 

Facebook and Skype plan comms deal
Facebook and Skype are considering aligning their communications services more closely, according to reports. As per the proposed partnership, Facebook users will be able to sign into Skype via their Facebook Connect accounts. Users will be able to text message, voice chat and video chat with their Facebook friends from within Skype.
Global Telecoms Business

Google Android app allows texting while driving
A free Android application to be unveiled on Thursday at the Mobilize conference in San Francisco will let mobile phone users send and receive text messages without touching or looking at the phone.  AdelaVoice, a Boston startup, developed the StartTalking app primarily to solve the problem of distracted driving, according to Chairman and CEO Chris Hassett. Texting while driving has been linked to driver distraction and accidents and is illegal in some places
PC Advisor

Can Twitter Lead People to the Streets?
In The New Yorker this week, Malcolm Gladwell offers a bracing critique of the notion that social media like Twitter and Facebook are reinventing activism -- claims that were broadly made after Twitter became identified with protests in Moldova and Iran last year. "Social networks are effective at increasing participation — by lessening the level of motivation that participation requires," he writes. And the "weak ties" created by these platforms, he adds, cannot promote the discipline and strategy that true political activism requires.
New York Times

How to tell if someone is happy or sad on the phone
Boffins have come up with some vital research on what makes different types of people "tick". The scientists at the University of Cambridge have developed new mobile phone technology called EmotionSense that can tell if a caller is happy, angry or sad. Scientists hope to fit the speech recognition system to standard mobile phones and use it to determine emotions - it will also use a GPS tracking system to log where the call is made.
Tech Eye

Mobile web page views up 14 percent
The number of web pages viewed from mobile phone has surged by 14 percent, says Opera.  According to the web browser developer's latest 'State of the mobile web' report, 33.9 billion pages were viewed using its Opera Mini mobile browser. As well as being 14 percent up on last month, its a 143 percent increase on the same period last year.
PC Advisor

Students pick Dell as top-desired employer
Dell Inc. was picked among the top 50 companies college students would like to work, according to a recent poll.The Round Rock-based computer maker ranked No. 45 on the list, which was dominated by technology and financial companies. Google Inc. retained the top spot in the annual poll by the Universum Group employer branding firm.
Austin Business Journal

Augmented Reality Program Allows Users To Try On Swimsuits Virtually
We've all been through the scenario where we go to the mall and couldn't find the right suit or piece of clothing for ourselves, but thanks to the magic of augmented reality (AR), the ladies will be able to try on swimsuits without having to go all the way to the mall (and through traffic). A company called immediaC has come up with a system that uses a webcam to keep an eye on the user, allowing them to virtually try on swimsuits, even allowing them to walk back and forth and seeing what the whole piece will look like. The app currently only supports swimsuits, though we're sure it will be expanded further down the line to support other pieces of clothing. Video after the jump.
Uber Gizmo

UK plc desperately seeking social media consultants
Demand for social media consultants is rising sharply in the UK, according to PeoplePerHour.com. The freelance jobs marketplace said job postings for Facebook advisers, Twitter gurus and YouTube experts who can advise businesses on how to make better use of social media services to boost sales and marketing have leapt more than 300 per cent this year, as businesses look to ramp up their social media presence.
Silicon

The Flintstones Games For Kids: Google Doodle Celebration
Today is the 50th anniversary of The Flintstones, and Google thought that they would help celebrate this by way of a doodle on their homepage, which Alan Ng reported earlier. We thought we would also celebrate these characters birthdays by looking at four flash games online. The first game we have is Sort My Tiles: Fred Flintstone. This game is simple, as you have an image and then a lighter tile with an image, you just got to match this up to the main image
Product Reviews

BlackBerry unveils Playbook tablet to rival iPad
Blackberry’s new Playbook tablet will be the fastest ever tablet, says Research in Motion as it aims for slice of Apple’s iPad market. The Playbook will be able to run Adobe?s Flash, which Apple?s iPad doesn?t, and offer micro-HDMI and micro-usb ports. BlackBerry will release the tablet early in the new year. The device will feature a 7-inch multitouch touchscreen and a new operating system derived from the company’s purchase of company QNX. BlackBerry chief executive Mike Lazaridis was joined at the launch by the company's founder, Dan Dodge, who said that "QNX is going to enable things that you have never seen before. Lazardis said the PlayBook would be the first professional tablet, and Dodge added that it would be "an incredible gaming platform for publishers and the players.
The Telegraph

New Windows Phone 7 Form Factor Accidentally Disclosed?
When Windows Phone 7 devices are launched next month, they will all share the same form factor, commonly known as Chassis 1, that is a large screen with or without a slide out keyboard. But there's also a second form factor that may be coming out later and Microsoft’s ISV developer evangelist Paul Foster doled out more details about what Chassis 2 will be in an interview with UK tech site, Silicon.He mentions that smartphones at launch will come with a 800x480 pixels screen size while later models will have a 320x480 pixels Blackberry style handset that can incorporate a QWERTY keyboard on the front, like the BB Curve or the BB Bold.
IT Pro Portal

Three offers free Facebook phone access
Customers of mobile network Three can now access Facebook for free, thanks to a new deal with the social-networking site. Users can now access 0.facebook.com, which is a stripped down version of the website that features no graphics, only a list of status updates and the like. Three is the first network to offer the service in the UK, explaining in a press release: "At Three, we want to make the mobile internet easy and affordable for everyone. "We are delighted to work with Facebook to bring one of the most visited mobile websites to our customers for free."We have the only 100% 3G network in the UK so that we can provide our customers with the very best experience of the mobile internet"
Tech Radar

Check your bank balance from your mobile
Accessing a bank account via an app on a smartphone is proving more popular than internet banking with those who have access, according to new research. People who use mobile apps to check their bank balance are doing so three times more frequently than those who use internet banking, according to data collected by Monitise. The company provides technology and platforms for mobile banking apps and text message services to some of Britain's biggest banks, including RBS and Lloyds. More than 3 million Britons now have access to banking via apps on their mobile phone, says Mobitise which has tracked the number of people downloading its services. Users download apps, mobile applications, to their smartphone and then use them to keep an eye on their account balance or set up text alerts.
This is Money

RIM teams with Webtrends for BlackBerry app analytics
Developer community to get 'enterprise class' measurement tools. Research In Motion is working with Webtrends to offer app analytics tools to its BlackBerry developer community.The service will be made available free of charge when it launches in early-2011, with developers required to integrate the Webtrends SDK. Among the metrics tracked by the BlackBerry Analytics Service will be use, frequency of use, loyalty of users, screens accessed and features used.
Mobile Entertainment

Virgin Media offers 3D movies on demand
Virgin Media has got a gift for all those with 3D goggleboxes: a new 3D Movies On Demand service. It’s the first of its kind in the UK, bringing new 3D films straight to your living room.Available to all Virgin Media TV customers, you’ll just need to supply your own 3D telly and glasses, Virgin is dishing up 3D movies and even some TV programmes from today. The 3D Movies On Demand service makes good on Virgin’s promise that its set-top boxes are already 3D ready, and is powered by FilmFlex. Virgin Media says it’s planning to build its 3D portfolio over the coming months, as more 3D programmes and movies become available, and as 3D TVs become a more common sight in British homes. In the meantime, the fledgling service has succeeded in pipping Sky, which will launch its own 3D channel later this year, to the post.
Electric Pig

Is Amazon’s Next Play In Mobile An App Store For Android?
Amazon.com is close to launching its own app store for Android, which is something that just about everyone in mobile has been expecting for some time. While one of the greatest online retailers hasn’t been a stranger to mobile, this could mark the beginning of a much bigger push as a digital content company starting with mobile first. An Amazon app store could open the door to everything that other industry players, such as Apple, are attempting to do from scratch. For instance, it could include the sale of books, applications, video and even the platform to store all of a users’ content in the cloud. Right now, TechCrunch is only reporting a handful of details, and frankly, it is even hesitant to say whether the information is correct. We’ve asked Amazon to comment, and will update when we hear back.
Moco News

Microsoft dumps Live Spaces for WordPress
Microsoft and WordPress.com have announced that WordPress will replace Windows Live Spaces as the default blogging platform for Windows Live. Rather than having Windows Live invest in a competing blogging service, we decided the best thing we could do for our customers was to give them a great blogging solution through WordPress.com.Microsoft said in a blog post. The company also pointed out that "WordPress powers over 8.5 percent of the web, is used on over 26 million sites, and WordPress.com is seen by over 250 million people every month.
The Telegraph

Has the West declared cyber war on Iran?
Experts say the computer virus found in a nuclear plant is the work of a foreign power
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visits one of Iran's nuclear plants, which have come under attack from the virus  Computers can go wrong, and everyone is used to it. But that's at home. We assume that the machines controlling the infrastructure that makes everything tick power stations, chemical works, water purification plants have rock-solid defences in place to deal with unexplained crashes or virus attacks by malicious strangers. Now, though, a new kind of online sabotage has reached its zenith with a self-replicating "worm" that started on a single USB drive and has spread rapidly through industrial computer systems around the world.
The Independent

Unity 3 now available to developers
Better mobile gaming at bargain bucket prices. The latest version of Unity's leading game development tool, Unity 3, has been released to games developers this week, enabling the creation of high-end graphics and mobile game creation tools at a bargain bucket price. Unity is perhaps best known for its use in creating mobile, web and 3D mobile games. This latest version of the game creation package -version 3 also gives game creators some impressive desktop and console graphics features. Unity recently picked up The Wall Street Journal 2010 Technology Innovation Award for its games developer tools. Unity 3 offers devs the integration of Illuminate Labs' Beast Lightmap tool, which gamers will know from titles such as Mirror's Edge and Killzone 2, used to create high-quality 32-bit floating point shadow maps.
Tech Radar

Google launches Google New
Google has announced the launch of a new portal which it hopes will help users to find its latest and greatest creations, dubbed - imaginatively enough, Google New.
The site, which is live now, pulls in posts from Google's hundred-strong network of official blogs - but only those which relate to a brand-new technology, site, or service that the company is launching.
Thinq
 
Gartner Estimates 'IT Debt' to Be $500 Billion This Year - Reaching $1 Trillion by 2015
Global IT debt will total approximately $500 billion in 2010, with the potential to rise to $1 trillion by 2015, according to Gartner. ¬After a decade of tight budgets, the scale of the maintenance backlog has created a systemic risk, particularly for large organizations.
Cellular News 
 
Dell set to launch 3D notebook using Wistron solution
Dell is expected to launch a 3D notebook using Wistron's polarizer solution in October 2010 and will target mainstream market.
Hewlett-Packard (HP) also recently announced its 17-inch Envy 3D notebook featuring AMD's ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5850 GPU for 3D effects with shutter glasses. The notebook uses Intel's Core i7 processor and will be priced about US$2,000 targeting the year-end holiday season.
Digi Times 
 
BlackBerry expected maker to enter tablet market
BlackBerry manufacturer RIM will unveil a tablet device at the company’s developer conference next week, according to reports.
The device, dubbed the BlackPad, is expected to be similar to the Apple iPad, with a touchscreen display, two cameras and Wi-Fi connectivity.
New Media Age  

Facebook 'working with INQ Mobile to develop phone'
According to Bloomberg, which cites “people familiar with matter” as its source, the devices will be launched in Europe during the first half of 2011 and in the US in the second half of the year.  Facebook has repeatedly denied that it plans to launch its own mobile phone, saying: “Facebook is not building a phone. Our view is that almost all experiences would be better if they were social, so integrating deeply into existing platforms and operating systems is a good way to enable this.”
The Telegraph  

Over half of all apps have security holes
More than half of all software applications failed to meet an acceptable level of security, according to a study based on real-world code audits by application security firm Veracode. Around 57 per cent of applications failed to pass muster when first submitted to Veracode’s cloud-based testing service. A similar 56 per cent of finance-related applications failed first testing by Veracode’s security audit. The quality of the code used in many business-critical banking and insurance operations was simply not up to snuff.
The Register 
 
Thai 3G auction in doubt as court upholds injunction
Supreme court says regulator NTC's authority to allocate spectrum still in doubt. The future of Thailand's long-delayed auction of third-generation mobile licenses was thrown into further doubt Thursday after the Supreme Administrative Court upheld a lower court's injunction against the plan, hitting the share price of major telecom companies.
Total Telecom 
 
EU Parliament calls for pan-EU copyright law
The European Commission should create a directly enforceable EU-wide copyright law that could be used to bring copyright infringers to book, the European Parliament has said. Current law is not closely harmonised enough, it said. The Parliament has adopted a report from a French MEP which examined the state of intellectual property rights (IPR) enforcement and has recommended the creation of a new European copyright law to help reduce infringement.
The Register 
 
13 Year-Old Teen Won the LG US National Texting Championship 2010
The fourth annual LG U.S. National Texting Championship has just been won by 13 year-old, Brianna Hendrickson from Brooklyn, NY this week. Using a LG Ally phone that has a slide out QWERTY keyboard, Brianna finished the required input “Old McDonald had a farm, Ei, ei, oh! And on this farm he had a champ. W/a txtr here, and BFF there. Here a text, there a text, erywhere a text-text!” with 60 seconds. She took home $50,000 and will now compete in the LG Text For Good Challenge, where she will have the chance to double her prize money and select a charity to which LG will make a $50,000 donation.
Slash Phone 

Mark Zuckerberg is richer than Steve Jobs
Mark Zuckerberg is officially richer than Apple CEO Steve Jobs, and gives more money away to charity, according to this year's Forbes 400 list.
The annual Forbes 400 list ranks the US's 400 richest businessmen and entrepreneurs, with an increasing number of tech industry luminaries on the list every year.
Tech Radar  
 
 
 

Facebook fraud a 'major issue'
Site says it is developing new ways to verify users' identities and detect when their accounts have been hacked. Facebook is introducing new ways to protect its 500 million users. Photograph: Chris Jackson/Getty Images. Hacking of Facebook accounts to scam people out of money has become a "major issue" for the social networking site, its head of European public policy, Lord Richard Allan, has told the Guardian. As a result the site is implementing new ways of detecting when its users' accounts have been hacked, and is adding warnings if it is accessed from unusual locations or by different methods than usual. Allan said that hacking was a problem that would be countered by sophisticated methods of tracking unusual user behaviour
The Guardian

EMI launches Kylie Minogue and Lily Allen apps for Ovi
Eliza Doolittle and Professor Green also get the Nokia treatment. Record label EMI has launched four artist apps for Nokia's Ovi Store - one of the first labels to look beyond iPhone's App Store in this way. The apps, which are all free, are for Lily Allen, Kylie Minogue, Eliza Doolittle and Professor Green. All offer a mixture of news, photos, tour info and music, and are presumably plumbed into Nokia's Ovi Music store.
Mobile Entertainment

Mobile payments give flat hunters a head start
It’s that time of year as all the colleges and universities start back in, there are gangs of roving students desperate to find accommodation. Spareroom.co.uk is one of the biggest flat and house sharing websites in the UK, and it is using mobile payments to make life easier for flat hunters by giving them a head start on everyone else. Spareroom.co.uk has teamed up with a mobile payments provider called ImpulsePay to create the new service, which is called ‘Early Bird’. It’s only available for mobile phone owners, and it pushes notifications of new apartments directly to your phone as soon as they go live. This can give you a valuable advantage over people who have to wait for net access before they can check for new ads. This service isn’t free it costs £3 to get 24 hours worth of Early Bird notifications, or £10 to get 10 days worth.
GoMo News

Avenir Telecom and O2 launch Winter Wonderland  
Avenir Telecom has launched a three month ‘Winter Wonderland’ sales incentive in collaboration with O2. Avenir will track and reward new connections across all O2 Business voice plans, converged BlackBerry, mobile broadband and landline connections. The incentive began on 1 September and runs until 30 November 2010, when Avenir’s entire base of clients with an O2 dealer code, can collect reward points, in addition to their standard commission. To celebrate in style and reward 24 of the top performing O2 clients, based on percentage sales over target, Avenir will host an ‘eat, drink and be merry’ event where every client will win a prize from Avenir’s Christmas Advent Calendar.
Mobile Business Magazine

Oracle pushes Java for mobiles
JAVA TOOK THE SPOTLIGHT in San Francisco today as Oracle opened the Java One show, running alongside its main Openworld event.Java One 2010 marks the first year that Oracle has run the show since its acquisition of Sun. Thomas Kurian, EVP of Oracle product development, took to the stage on Monday evening to shed light on the firm's three-year development plan for Java.
Oracle's plans focus around enhancing productivity for Java developers, integrating modularity into the Java virtual machine, and extending it to support all languages. It is aiming to offer integration between Java, Javascript and HTML5, and to let developers use a common programming model across browser and Java applications. Oracle will also release a new graphics engine next year, which will add full 3D support and DirectX Windows support.
The Inquirer

Telegraph launches Apple iPad app
The Telegraph Media Group has released its first Apple iPad application, featuring the best editorial content from both the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Telegraph. The free application allows people to stay in touch with all the latest news, sport and weather as well as all the other key sections such as business, comment and features. The app will download the paper from 5am every day and features a 'simple and easy navigation' and (our favourite bit) a Matt cartoon on the front page.
Tech Radar

UK’s Synchronica Buys iseemedia For Mobile E-mail Platform
UK-based mobile messaging services provider Synchronica has acquired iseemedia, a Canadian-based developer of mobile e-mail delivery platforms. Synchronica first made a friendly takeover bid for the company on July 22, according to a document filed with the London Stock Exchange. The acquisition expands Synchronica’s market to 853 million subscribers worldwide and provides contracts with large mobile operators in India, the second-largest mobile market in the world. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, however, as part of the transaction, iseemedia agreed to dispose of its subsidiary RealBiz 360, which is not related to the mobile email business. The sale of those assets generated $1.53 million in Canadian dollars, which is being used to fund the operations of the combined company. Additionally, the two companies were expecting to close CAD $7 million in financing. iseemedia is listed on the Toronto Venture Exchange
Moco News

China could make moon landing in 2025
Country also plans space station within a decade and Mars and Venus probes to be launched in next five years Yang Liwei, China's first astronaut, steps out of the re-entry capsule of Shenzhou-5, China's first manned spacecraft, in 2003. Photograph: Wang Jianmin/Corbis. China could put an astronaut on the moon in 2025 and launch probes to explore Mars and Venus within five years, according to the boss of a Chinese space programme. Ye Peijian said China could make its first manned moon landing in 15 years, send a probe to Mars by 2013 and to Venus by 2015. "China has the full capacity to accomplish Mars exploration by 2013," he added. The remarks, by the commander in chief of the country's Chang'e lunar exploration project, were reported by the English language Global Times today and underscore the ambition of China's plans. It was understood that Ye was speaking in his capacity as an academic at an aerospace engineering forum at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, rather than unveiling official policy.
The Guardian

Microsoft to take on iTunes with Zune music and video store
Tech giant to launch store and subscription service for Xbox 360, Windows PCs and Windows Phone 7 phones within weeks. Microsoft is to launch an online music and video store and music subscription service to compete with the likes of Apple and Spotify. The store and service will be offered under the Zune brand, initially the name of Microsoft's digital music player launched in 2006 as a would-be iPod killer. It failed to make a substantial impact on the US market and the player has never been available outside north America. However, last November Microsoft launched a film-streaming service under the Zune brand for the Xbox 360 in 18 countries, including the UK and 14 European and Scandinavian countries. The store and subscription service for Windows PCs, its new Windows Phone 7 phones and the Xbox 360 games console will be launched within weeks.
The Guardian

Internet access in residential care homes and subsidised web access ‘a matter of social justice’ says the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology.
Older people should be guaranteed access to the web, says charity Fact.Residential care homes for the elderly should become digital hubs, the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology has said. In a Digital Manifesto for Older People, the charity suggests that Digital technology can help older people get socially connected, with lessons in how to surf, blog, make short films or even DJ.Two thirds of the UK’s population over 65 has never used the internet, compared to just 20 per cent on average. Fact hopes that residential care homes, sheltered accommodation, clubs for the elderly and care centres could help to give older people access to enter the digital world.  Mike Stubbs, the charity’s director, said that an ever-increasing number of essential services can now only be accessed via the internet. This is primarily a matter of social justice and should be at the centre of the ‘Big Society’ agenda that promotes localism and active citizenship.
The Telegraph