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Facebook faces investigation by UK regulator over its controversial emotion experiment

Jul02
by on July 2, 2014 at 2:57 am
Posted In: Around the Web, UK

Facebook is in trouble in the UK over its controversial experiment that saw it manipulating the emotions of hundreds of thousands of users for a week. The Financial Times reports that the UK’s data regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), is looking into whether Facebook infringed any data protection laws when it carried out the experiment. It has to determine this based on how much personal data was used, and whether users gave their consent. Other than interrogating Facebook, it is said that the ICO will also approach Ireland’s data regulator, because Facebook’s European headquarters is located in Dublin. Facebook’s brewing trouble…

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Xiaomi sells 26.1m smartphones in the first half of 2014, surpassing unit sales for whole of 2013

Jul02
by on July 2, 2014 at 2:14 am
Posted In: Around the Web, Asia, Gadgets, xiaomi

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As popular Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi’s overseas expansion gets into high gear — with recent launches in Malaysia, the Philippines and India — the company has just announced that it sold 26.1 million smartphones in the first half of this year. Other than marking a jump of 271 percent from a year earlier, this means Xiaomi has already surpassed the number of units sold for the whole of 2013. Xiaomi sold 18.7 million smartphones in 2013, up 160 percent from a year earlier and more than its initial target of 15 million devices. For the first six months of 2014, Xiaomi’s CEO…

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First look at the Wink Hub, tech’s latest dummy-proof home automation center

Jul01
by on July 1, 2014 at 11:47 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Gadgets, Insider, Product Launches

wink hub
Another day, another product is added to the ever-growing “smart home” industry. Just last week, GE announced a $15 smart LED bulb along with a slew of other “connected” devices from its partnership with invention company Quirky. Still, ask an average person if they’ve heard of Quirky and you might find yourself explaining the concept. Ask the same person if they’ve heard of Home Depot and the reaction would be the complete opposite. To make smart home products more accessible and less confusing for the mass market, Home Depot has teamed up with Quirky-owned Wink to create a line of connected…

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FTC says ‘Un-carrier’ T-Mobile charged customers millions in deceptive fees

Jul01
by on July 1, 2014 at 9:59 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, ftc, Insider, John Legere, t-mobile

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T-Mobile likes to tout itself as the Un-carrier–the carrier that goes against the grain and offers up services the other carriers won’t. Today the FTC filed a complaint against the company alleging it knowingly charged customers for scamtacular third-party text messages. The FTC says that T-Mobile took part in a a practice known as “cramming.” Cramming is placing third-party charges on customer bills without the customer’s authorization. The charges were labled as “Premium Services” and usually added an additional $9.99 to a bill. The FTC says that T-Mobile was aware of the suspicious nature of the charges with 40 percent of…

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AKVIS Pastel transforms your photos into pastel works of art

Jul01
by on July 1, 2014 at 9:24 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Product Launches

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Pastels—part crayon, part colored pencil, part paint—are not only a great artistic favorite for their intuitive ease of use, but also for their gorgeous look. Even if you’re not an artist, you’re likely have a box of pastels around somewhere. Now you can use them on Mac or Windows with the new AKVIS Pastel, which converts photos in pastel art. Whereas numerous general purpose painting apps, such as Corel Painter, FotoSketcher, GMSPhotoPainter, and even Photoshop let you apply pastel effects, AKVIS’s new offering specializes in the genre. The application’s brush tools let you refine the preset result by changing stroke direction or adjusting…

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