Japanese electronic giant Toshiba Corp. announced on Tuesday that it is developing a new technology that would allow viewers to watch 3D television without special glasses.

In an interview, Toshiba spokesperson Yuko Sugahara confirmed earlier reports, saying that the development for such technology is now being undertaken.

“Many people don’t like to wear those special glasses to watch TV for a long time, specially people who must wear 3-D glasses over regular glasses. That is why Toshiba is now developing a new technology that would allow users to view 3D movies even without glasses,” said Sugahara.

However, Sugahara refused to comment on Japanese newspaper reports that the company will come up with the new 3D television by year’s end.

To date, Sony Corp. and Panasonic Corp. are the leading companies when it comes to 3D TV technology. However, units being sold still require 3D glasses.

Toshiba said that they are looking for ways to go around the traditional 3D glasses, saying that screens that don’t require special glasses are already available in the market.

“The only thing is that these 3D screens were designed only for store displays and not for moving pictures. These screens require viewers to stand on specific spots for them to see the effects,” she said. “Besides having only still images, the quality of pictures in these screens is much lower than those that require special 3D glasses.”

Sugahara said that they are now investing hundreds of millions of dollars in 3D technology for TV to bring the exciting experience of movies like “Avatar” and other blockbuster movies to the viewers at the comfort of their own homes.

The spokesperson also said that the new 3D technology for television will coincide with the development of gaming consoles that can play three dimensional games.

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A report over the weekend told that thousands of Saudis are now selling off their BlackBerry devices ahead of the scheduled ban by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

However, with very few people willing to buy the smartphones, Saudis were forced to sell it at a much cheaper price.

“I want to get a new smartphone. Since the announcement of the ban, many Saudis have already traded or sold their BlackBerry fearing that they will not be able to sell it when the ban is already implemented,” a Saudi national said.

Many cellphone shops in the UAE and Saudi Arabia also expressed fear that the ban could affect their sales, saying that fewer people are now buying phones, particularly smartphones.

There are also rumored that the ban would take effect Friday midnight causing more panic among its users. But a day after the “supposed” implementation, many of the devices are still working and services can still be used.

It will be recalled that the governments of Saudi Arabia and the UAE announced plans to ban the use of BlackBerry services starting October 11, saying that the device is a direct threat to national security since the encrypted messages sent through the device is outside the jurisdiction of the government.

The UAE Telecommunications Regulatory Administration (TRA) cited reports that the device are being used by spies and other anti-government infiltrators to pass on encrypted messages that could not be monitored by local governments.

The TRA said that it would ban BlackBerry e-mail, messaging and Web browsing starting in October 11, while Indonesia and India are also demanding greater control over the data.

For its part, Research in Motion (RIM), the maker of the popular BlackBerry device, said that they are now talking “privately” with the governments, hoping to come up with a “win-win” solution that would avert the planned ban.

An RIM official familiar with the matter said that the discussion includes putting up a local server in the respective countries allowing the government to have a peek on the encrypted messages.

The official, who refused to be named, said that they are also discussing the possible privacy violations when the local servers were put up.

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The United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Monday announced a controversial decision, legalizing the so-called “jailbreaking” of the popular Apple iPhone and unlocking of other mobilephones and smartphones.

Jailbreaking an iPhone allows users to use the device on other carriers aside from AT&T, the official wireless partner and sole distributor of the Apple Inc gadget.

When the iPhone has been unlocked, users can now also run other applications, on the device even those without approval by Apple.

Based on estimates by the FCC, there are at least one million users that have their iPhone unlocked. Though considered as illegal, no report or charges have been filed against an iPhone user to date.

But Apple stressed that jailbreaking an iPhone would cost the user the warranty and free services that comes with the device.

The world largest technology firm also fought hard to stop the legalization of “jailbreaking,” saying that the act of unlocking a contracted device is a form of copyright violation.

But the FCC dismissed Apple’s argument, saying that unlocking or jailbreaking an iPhone is merely an act of enhancing the inter-operability of the gadget, and was thus legitimate under fair-use rules.

The new FCC ruling is effective immediately. Users can now jailbreak or use unapproved applications to their iPhones without worrying of landing in jail.

Meanwhile, Apple and AT&T wireless remained silent over the new ruling.

According to reports, most of the wireless subscribers prefer to use the iPhone on T-Mobile networks rather being locked on AT&T. A large number of jailbreak iPhone, according to the reports, can be found overseas.

Meanwhile, the top programs or applications that users run on their iPhone include Safari ad-blocking apps, changing SMS interface, icon editing, and alternate keyboards. All of these applications were barred by Apple to be used in the device.

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Computer giant IBM Corp. has raised its annual forecast for this year as the technology sector batted for bigger sales in the coming months.

The company made the announcement despite shaky market conditions in the technology sector, saying that the worst is finally over for the sector and bigger sales will be at hand in the comings months.

IBM also reported that its net income for the second quarter of this year has spiked up by nine percent ($3.39) billion, or roughly $2.65 per share. The figures have topped earlier analysts’ projection of $2.58 per share.

But the company said that its Q2 revenue has slipped by two percent to $23.7 billion, below the $24.2 billion analysts predicted.

The computer giant blamed the currency changes over the past three months, which cost at least $500 million worth of losses to the company. IBM said that experts, who have estimated the revenue projection, have failed to include the data in their calculations.

The currency value is important for IBM since most of its businesses were outside the United States, particularly Europe.

With the dollar-euro rate at its lowest, the computer giant gained less possible revenue when the euros were converted to greenbacks.

Also, despite the consistent positive forecasting by Wall Street, IBM also disclosed that the company shares dropped by four percent on Monday due to reductions in its services contract value.

IBM announced a 12 percent slip in the value of services contracts signed during the second quarter of 2010, costing to about $12.3 billion.

Meanwhile, other major players in the technology sector expressed belief that the economy will soon pick and more corporations will start to replace their old computer systems, which in turn could bring higher revenue for the tech firms.

Other Internet companies such as Google also shared the same view, citing the continued increase in the advertising revenue online.

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Computer giant Microsoft Corp. and the National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA) have teamed up to produce the most detailed 3-D images of space and the planets through the so-called “WorldWide Telescope.”
Microsoft’s “WorldWide Telescope,” which has been steadily increased viewership on the Internet, is the galactic version of Google Earth.

With the help of NASA, Microsoft was now able to produce high-definition 3-D images of objects and planets that can be found in the Milky Way and other galaxies.

One of the highly talked about image was the true color map of the entire Mars surface, taking online users to a “Total Recall” experience.

Microsoft also launched the first of its kind, high-resolution spherical sky map called the “TeraPixel,” which users can view using a virtual telescope.

TeraPixel, which is also under the WorldWide Telescope program, is the largest and clearest spherical image of the sky.

The image was made possible through Digitized Sky Survey, which is a collection of hundreds of thousands of images that were taken in a 50-year period by two survey telescopes on Earth.

The combination of the collected images gives users the spherical and panoramic view of the night skies, which would require 50,000 HD televisions to view.

Scientists at NASA expressed surprise to the outcome of the project, saying that they can now navigate through space using TeraPixel and make their own discoveries.

NASA’s chief technology officer for IT, Chris Kemp, said that the release of the two programs, Microsoft and the space agency have lowered the barrier in accessing the thrill of space.

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A human rights group on Wednesday cried foul over recent moves of the Chinese Internet regulators, who want to reduce the anonymity among online users in mainland China.

State Council Information Office director Wang Chen, in his address to the national legislature in April, has called for the extensive system that would require all Internet users to use their real names when going online or buying a mobile phone.

Chen said that the new registration system will allow the Chinese government to better manage the Internet and the content being provided by its users.

The Chinese government tried to remove the full context of Chen’s speech from its websites to avoid the watchful eyes of its critics. The media’s reporting on the issue was abruptly cut by the government.

However, a New York-based human rights group in China, which managed to obtain the original copy of the speech, expressed fear that the new proposal would make another row of human rights violations in the country, saying that they have found “an unexpurgated text and discrepancies” in the documents.

“This only shows that Beijing is wary that its push for tighter information control to its people,” the group said in its China Rights Forum magazine.

China’s move, according to the group, will plug all the loopholes in its existing Internet control called “The Great Firewall” by limiting anonymous access to contents or comments online.

It will be recalled that the tight Internet control by the Chinese government led to row with online giant Google.

But the due to the large consumer and advertising potential of the country, Google was forced to vow down to the Chinese, allowing it to resume operations in the mainland after months of absence.

Despite the pervasive censorship and stricter controls online, China’s online population continued to grow with over 400 million active users, the largest in the world. Also, China has over 233 million mobile Internet users.

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A group technology experts and volunteers has released on Thursday a new version of the popular open-source blogging website WordPress.

Dubbed as WordPress version 3.0, the new software hosts more than 2, 700 upgrades, which include 1, 217 bugs fix. At least 218 volunteers have provided the software upgrades for the 13th version of the software.

Research and consulting firm Real Story Group analyst Adriaan Bloem said that WordPress has now become the “most capable” blogging platform on the Internet, citing the most notable upgrade in the website’s feature – the multi-task blogging capability.

Real Story group, a company that specializes in content management software, said that with the addition of the WordPress MU, administrators can now run multiple blogs simultaneously.

“MU has been integrated into the main version of WordPress ensures that it should be easier to deploy,” Bloem noted.

Bloem believe that the addition of the MU capability to the main WordPress website has now put it directly ahead of its rival MovableType, which has long offered the multiple blogs.

“Despite MovableType’s long history of running multiple blogs, many of the online users still prefer WordPress because of its user-friendly interface. And with the addition of the MU, WordPress has overtaken MovableType in the race for blogging supremacy,” Bloem added.

It was learned that WordPress run on PHP platform, which is much easier to use than the Perl Language platform of MovableType.

WordPress users can now define whether their articles will go to certain categories such as products, models, and other specification they will require – through the website’s custom post capability.

Prior to the implementation of the custom post, WordPress user content were often limited to just blogs.

“The custom post types will further help establish WordPress as a good candidate for managing an entire Web site’s content, in addition to just the blogs,” Bloem added.

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In a bid to attract more consumers to its doors, the world’s largest coffee chain Starbucks Corp. announced on Monday that it will be offering unlimited use of wireless internet access (Wi-Fi) in all company-operated stores starting July 1.

Starbucks hopes to take back lucrative share of the restaurant business from its rivals like McDonald’s Corp. and other coffee chains that have long used free Wi-Fi connection to attract customers.

This time, Starbucks takes one step further by giving customers free Wi-Fi access, which will include special news networks and entertainment contents.

The Starbucks Digital Network was done in partnership with Yahoo, giving customers free access to online news websites like the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Patch and USA Today as well as free music downloads on Apple iTune Stores.

Previously, Starbucks offered only two hours of free Internet access to each user everyday.

The company started implementing the earlier Wi-Fi scheme based on its study, which showed that customers login on the Internet in an average of one hour on each visit to Starbucks stores. Meanwhile, Smartphone users use Wi-Fi access on an average of 15 minutes.

The coffee giant hopes to extend its quarterly gains, which has been slumped for the past 13 quarters due to the recession and rapid expansion plans.

Starbucks also hopes to take back major market shares from McDonald’s, which has offered unlimited Wi-Fi access to some 11, 5000 stores. The coffee giant lost major clientele to McDonald’s due to its McCafe chain.

Following the announcement, Starbucks shares jumped by 1.5 percent or 41 cents ($27.56) during midday trading on Monday.

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A mobile phone security firm on Monday revealed that hackers have developed new types of computer virus that can be planted in Smartphones running on Microsoft Windows operating system.

In a statement, San Francisco-based security firm Lookout said that the viruswas planted in video games designed for Smartphones such as “3D Anti-Terrorist” and “PDA Poker Art.”

“The worst part is that these games were available on websites that provides legitimate software for cell phones and Smartphones,” Lookout chief executive John Hering said.

Hering, citing the results of their investigations, said that the mobile video games are usually bundled with malicious software (malwares), which are designed to automatically dial premium rate telephone services in different countries like Italy, Somalia, and Spain.

“Our investigations also showed that many of the unwitting victims were charged hundred or sometimes thousands of dollars in a month,” he said.

“Most of them did not even have a clue that their phones were infected by the virus. Not until they receive their phone bills with hundreds of dollars worth of premium-rate services,” he added.

Hering also disclosed the identity of the virus developers, saying that they were also the programmers of the telephone services.

With the boom in the use of the Apple iPhone, Google Android, and Research in Motion Blackberry, the official said that Smartphone users have become the favorite target of these hackers because the technology was relatively new and still has several loopholes in the software design.

Sought for comment, Microsoft Corp said that they were unaware of the new viruses that have been plaguing its clients.

“As always, Microsoft continues to encourage customers to follow all of the steps of the ‘Protect Your Computer’ guidance of enabling a firewall, applying all software updates and installing anti-virus and anti-spyware software,” the company added.

Microsoft said customers should visit http://www.microsoft.com/protect/ for guidance on protection from viruses.

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Due to the rising number of suicides at its China plant, Foxconn Technology Group, the manufacturer of the Apple iPhone and iPad tablet computer, announced on Thursday that it will raising its workers’ pay by 30 percent to curb further incidents from happening again.

Taiwan-based Foxconn pushed the alarm button after several reported cases of suicides due to inhumane conditions in its plant in China.

“We hope that the increase in workers’ salary will give them extra time for themselves and to go out with other people since there will be no need for overtime in their working hours,” a Foxconn official familiar with the matter said.

Based on records, at least ten people have already committed suicide while three others attempted to but were stopped by fellow workers.

Many of the cases involved workers jumping off the buildings while another worker slashed his wrists inside the factory dormitory.

Many of labor activists around the world criticize Foxconn for having a rigid management style, causing major mental torture to its employees. The company, however, denied such allegations.

Labor activists accuse the company of having a rigid management style, an excessively fast assembly line and forced overwork. Foxconn denies the allegations.

Meanwhile, the company said that the raise in the workers’ pay may also give the company advantages in terms of rise in productivity, lower turnover rate, and higher quality in their products.

The 30 percent increase was higher that the 20 percent originally planned by Foxconn.

Based on records, the average salary rate at Foxconn is $130 per month (an iPhone cost higher than this).

The company said that the wage increase is also necessary for them to cope up with the worsening labor shortage after the financial crisis that hit the country.

The company, part of Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., is the world’s largest contract maker of electronics. Its long list of big-name customers include Apple Inc., Sony Corp., Dell Inc., Nokia Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co.

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