Internet traffic normalised on SEA-ME-WE-4.

KARACHI: Pakistan Internet traffic has been restored on major submarine cable South East Asia-Middle East-West Europe 4 (SEA-ME-WE 4) after facing intermittent congestion on the networks of different service providers in the past fortnight. Officials of the cable system providers said the overall Internet and telephony traffic has been switched completely over to SEA-ME-WE 4 again as technical problem was rectified on radio link near Egypt. Internet services in different cities of Pakistan have been normalised on the networks of all Internet service providers (ISPs) connected with two undersea cable-Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) and Transworld. The services earlier faced constant interruption on the networks of different ISPs multiple times in the last two weeks. Download and browsing speed slowed down while services were completely suspended on some networks during the same period. Meanwhile, the two backbone providers have shifted their Internet traffic to SEA-ME-WE 3 in order to avoid congestion on their routes.

Firefox 4.0 RC 2 released.

Mozilla has released Firefox 4.0 RC 2 which boasts dozens of new features delivering faster, more secure and custom-made Web browsing.

Incorporating a smart location bar, the new Firefox learns as people use it, adapting to preferences and more appropriate 'matches'.

The new browser also has new phishing and malware protection helps protect from worms, viruses and trojans.

Samsung Series 9 notebook rivals MacBook Air.

A new rival for Apple's MacBook Air is about to hit the shops on Thursday, (24th March).

Samsung's Series 9 Notebook is thinner and lighter than the MacBook Air and also uses the latest Intel 1.4 GHz i5-2537M processor.

The cost of the Series 9 is higher than that of the MacBook though and is set to cost $1,649, (£1015 GBP app.) for the cheapest model.

Samsung has also announced it will be releasing a new ultra-thin laptop running the Core i3-380UM processor, 2 GB of RAM and a 64 GB SSD. Pricing for this has not yet been released.

Sony PS3 User Bans Begin.

Some PlayStation 3 gamers have recently found that they are no longer able to log into the PlayStation Network, as a result of a new backlash unleashed by Sony!

Sony has cracked down hard on all those people who have use pirated content and jailbroken their consoles, especially using pirated content by the likes of George Hotz and fail0verflow.

This means a PS3 that has previously been jailbroken will now get error messages like: "You cannot use the PlayStation Network with this account (8002a227)". However, people are whispering there is a workaround available for this too!

France fines Google over Street View data blunder.

Google has been hit with a fine by France's privacy watchdog CNIL over the personal data it mistakenly gathered when setting up Street View.

The £87,000 (100,000 euro) penalty is the largest ever handed out by CNIL.

The fine is punishment for Google mistakenly scooping up personal data from wi-fi networks while taking pictures for Street View.

Google has apologised for the lapse and said it would delete the data concerned.

The data from open wi-fi networks was gathered while Google Street View cars roamed Europe from 2007 - 2010 taking photographs.

Information about the location of those wi-fi networks was intended to be used to improve the location finding ability of Street View and other Google services.

After levying the fine, CNIL criticised Google for its conduct during its investigation.

"They were not always willing to co-operate with us, they didn't give us all the information we asked for, like the source code of all devices in the Google cars," said Yann Padova, CNIL's executive director. "They were not always very transparent."

Google has two months in which to appeal against the fine. The fine is the first imposed on Google over the wi-fi data. More may be forthcoming from other countries.

In a statement, Google's global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer, wrote: "As we have said before, we are profoundly sorry for having mistakenly collected payload data from unencrypted wi-fi networks."

Google has said that an engineer's mistake led to it gathering more than just basic information about wi-fi hotspots. In May 2010 it admitted that it had accidentally gathered more than 600GB of this data in more than 30 countries.

Analysis found passwords, e-mail messages and login names in the data. Google has now stopped collecting data about wi-fi networks.

The furore over Street View and the pictures it takes have led to protests against the service being mounted in many different nations.

Crowd-sourcing aids Japan crisis.

People living close to the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan are collaborating to plot local radiation levels.

The RDTN.org website allows people to submit their own radiation readings and maps them alongside official data.

It is one of several so-called crowd-sourcing initiatives set up in the wake of the devastating earthquake and tsunami.

Another website, JapanStatus.org, also offers similar information.

To contribute to the RDTN site people will have to purchase a radiation detection device and the site directs people to four sources of such equipment. A typical device currently sells on Amazon for around £78.

Readings submitted to the site suggest that radiation levels of between 0.178 - 0.678 microsieverts per hour can be detected in and around Onuma Hitachi City that lies south of Fukushima.

Progress appears to be being made to restore power to the Fukushima Daiichi plant although, according to official sources, the situation remains very serious.

Villagers living nearby have been told not to drink tap water due to higher levels of radioactive iodine.

Other efforts to pool advice on how to cope with the disaster include new pages on The Global Innovations Commons, a site which compiles out-of-date patents.

It includes dozens of patents related to cooling down reactors from companies such as Hitachi and Siemens.

There is also information which could help with the rebuilding efforts, including water filtration technologies, shelter and building techniques and tsunami warning systems.

Google Fined Over 'Accidental' Privacy Fiasco.

Google received its first ever fine for improperly gathering and storing data for its Street View application on Monday when it was penalized by France's privacy watchdog.

The euro100,000 ($141,300) penalty -- the largest ever by French body CNIL -- sanctions Google for collecting personal data from Wi-Fi networks -- including e-mails, web browsing histories and online banking details -- from 2007 to 2010 through its roaming camera-mounted cars and bicycles.

The fine is the first against Google over the data-gathering, which more than 30 countries have complained about. At least two other European countries are considering fines, while some others have ruled against penalizing Google.

Google Inc. has apologized and says it will delete the data.

"As we have said before, we are profoundly sorry for having mistakenly collected payload data from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks," Google's Global Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer said in an e-mailed statement. "As soon as we realized what had happened, we stopped collecting all Wi-Fi data from our Street View cars and immediately informed the authorities."

Google has two months to appeal the fine. It hasn't yet decided whether it will, a company spokesman said.

The head of CNIL criticized Google for a lack of transparency and cooperation with its investigation, which it launched in 2009.

"They were not always willing to cooperate with us, they didn't give us all the information we asked for, like the source code of all devices in the Google cars," said Yann Padova, CNIL's executive director. "They were not always very transparent."

The incidents, which some critics have derisively labeled as "Wi-Spy," were caused by "an engineer's careless error as well as a lack of controls to ensure that necessary procedures to protect privacy were followed," Canada Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart concluded in a report last October.

Several other countries have skewered Google for scooping up 600 gigabytes of data -- equivalent to about six floors of an academic library -- from Wi-Fi systems for more than two years before detecting a problem in response from to an inquiry from regulators in Germany.

Google initially said it had only captured fragments of people's online activities, but Canada's investigation determined that entire e-mails, passwords and website addresses had been obtained and stored.

How Zynga Hopes to Make FarmVille Even More Addictive.

Beware, if you're among the hordes who wonder where the time went after becoming absorbed in online games such as "FarmVille" and "CityVille." Zynga, the hot Internet startup that created those ever-engrossing pastimes, is introducing another reason to goof off.

The lure this time is "RewardVille," a show of appreciation aimed at getting players even more absorbed in their online farms, cities, crime rings and poker games. The program unveiled a week ago doles out game points and credits that can be used to buy more virtual goodies on Zynga's existing games.

It's the latest attempt to deepen people's attachment to Zynga's strangely addictive world at a time attention spans are becoming more fickle. Several entertainment options now bombard people on an array of digital devices.

Zynga's success in capturing people's free time so far has been remarkable — and profitable, according to the privately held company's executives.

Its games are simple, but getting ahead requires time and dedication. In "CityVille," for example, players start with a simple plot of land, roads and buildings. They can add businesses, farms and landmarks through lots of faithful dragging and clicking of the mouse. They can invite friends to play and send them virtual gifts.

All games are free to play, but players can pay real money — a few coins or dollars at a time — to buy special items or reach a higher level of play more quickly.

Since CEO Mark Pincus launched the San Francisco startup in 2007, Zynga has attracted about 250 million game players — most of whom connect on Facebook's even larger Web hangout. Zynga's audience is somewhere between the population of the U.S. and Indonesia, the world's third and fourth most populous countries.

Zynga has grown so fast that it already has 1,500 employees and is moving into larger headquarters, which can accommodate several hundred more workers.

Zynga started a tradition in 2009 — ages ago in Internet time — where employees would wear red shirts for every day that "FarmVille" added another million users. There were some weeks where people would run out of red shirts, said Cadir Lee, Zynga's chief technology officer. More recently, "CityVille" demonstrated Zynga's drawing power by attracting 100 million players in the first seven weeks after its December introduction.

"That's the fastest-growing media property in the history of the planet," said social media analyst Lou Kerner of Wedbush Morgan.

Prospective investors are clamoring for a piece of Zynga in an initial public offering of stock that could come within the next year.

Marc Andreessen, who helped trigger an Internet boom in the mid-1990s after co-founding Web browser pioneer Netscape Communications, already bought a stake for his venture capital firm. He said he foresees Zynga becoming "one of the primary Internet franchises of the next 10, 20, 30 years."

Zynga makes most of its money through the sale of virtual items in its games, with the rest from advertising and partnerships with companies such as Netflix or Vistaprint on special offers.

In an example of how quickly the company can drum up money, Zynga recently raised $1 million in 36 hours for Save The Children's Japan charity. The donations for earthquake victims came through special virtual items that Zynga created for the cause. That number has since grown to $1.5 million.

Kerner estimates Zynga's revenue will approach $850 million this year, up from $529 million last year. As for recent investments that have valued the company as high as $10 billion, Kerner believes Zynga will be worth a lot more than that if it maintains its torrid growth pace. Zynga recently closed on $500 million of financing on that valuation.

But Zynga has its skeptics.

Ian Bogost, a game designer and Georgia Tech professor who studies video games, likened its games to fast food — mass-produced fare with little nutritional value. He even created a parody, "Cow Clicker," where the sole object is to click on virtual cows. Zynga's games, he said, are not as much about how well you can play or how much fun you have, but about how much effort or money you put in it.

"I don't want to celebrate them just because they have a lot of users and make a lot of money," Bogost said. He added that the company has been "very, very brazen about their business process. It turns your relationships into these resources that form the backbone of their business."

And Facebook users have often complained that Zynga's games are unimaginative and unwelcome intrusions into online banter and content sharing. Facebook last year changed the way it notifies users about games so that people who don't play a particular game won't continually get updates when friends send gifts of pigs or plum trees.

Nonetheless, just as McDonald's has thrived by churning out tasty burgers and fries for decades, Zynga is quickly building a lucrative franchise with a menu of frivolous distractions. BTIG Research analyst Rich Greenfield believes media conglomerates such as Walt Disney Corp. and Time Warner Inc. should be worried because Zynga's lightning-fast ascent threatens to take people's attention away from TV sets, movies and other sources of entertainment.

"Media has been fragmenting, and Zynga seems to be doing the exact opposite," he said. It "is growing at a staggering rate and reaching eyeballs that none of these companies are doing."

Disney responded to the threat last year by buying Zynga rival Playdom for $563 million.

The new program to reward loyalty is logical for Zynga, Greenfield said, because it probably will encourage people to spend even more time playing games.

Zynga is already devouring a lot of leisure time — and perhaps even diverting some players from their jobs or families. In this way, it's no different than TV or more traditional video games played on the Wii or the Xbox, or even knitting or crossword puzzles.

FarmVille's manicured plots, quirky animals, fairy cottages and quaint duck ponds provide Kim Lindell of Hampton, Conn., with a way to escape from stress. As a social worker, her job involves working with people in tough circumstances, dealing with substance abuse and homelessness. "I can leave all that behind" for a couple hours a day, Lindell said.

After getting up at 4 a.m., Lindell, 43, signs on to Facebook and, like 50 million other "FarmVille" players, dutifully tends her virtual farm. She said she spends about as much money on the game in a month as it would cost to go out to dinner at a restaurant a couple of times.

Many players, including 60-year-old Lucille Skibinski, don't pay anything at all. Skibinski, who is on disability and spends much of her time at home, said avoiding the temptation to buy something is part of the challenge.

"I like taking nothing and making something out of it," said Skibinski, from Caseyville, Ill., who recently reached the highest possible level, 100, on "FarmVille." "Anybody can buy levels if they've got money. I, on the other hand, got mine with no money but with a lot of skill and work."

Despite its successes, Zynga isn't in a rush to go public, partly because it already is sitting on a stockpile of cash. It doesn't need more investors — or their scrutiny — as long as it can keep churning out new games on its own terms and count on its next "Ville" to be just as addictive.

Release dates for Lenovo's new LePad Tablet.

We now know that Lenovo is getting ready to launch its "LePad Tablet". Remember, it was first unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, although a previous version had been announced early last year. It is now expected to be launched in March this year in China, and then globally in June.

We still don't know the exact price or the specifications for this tablet but we do know that it will run on Google's tablet OS. However, the last time they talked about it, it was going to have a 10.1 inch display running the Android 2.2 OS on a 1.3GHz processor from Snapdragon, 1280 x 800 resolution with a price tag of about 500 dollars. The question now on everyone's lips is will it have its custom "LeOS" skin or Honeycomb? We'll have to wait and see!

Google's Blogspot Banned!

Approximately 600,000 Blogspot users in Turkey have been left high and dry because their country has imposed a ban on this popular site. This is primarily because Turkish Super League football matches have been streamed and shown on the site for free and this is just not acceptable to some companies, especially Digiturk, a satellite TV company.

It has filed a copyright violation complaint in the Turkish courts saying that the matches that it broadcasts have been appearing on the site. As a result, Google's Blogger/Blogspot has been blocked in its entirety.

With SXSW over, what's next for group messaging.

At the South by Southwest Interactive Festival (SXSW) last week, messaging start-up GroupMe gave away 2,500 grilled cheeses branded with the company logo, and drained 13 kegs of Shiner Bock beer. It also saw over 2 million messages sent during groups created specifically for communication during SXSW, too, co-founder Steve Martocci told CNET.

"Things are going very well," Martocci said of the start-up's promotional efforts at SXSW, which included the "GroupMe Grill" strategically placed across the street from the Austin Convention Center for the distribution of the aforementioned free beer and grilled cheese to anyone who could prove that they were using the GroupMe app. "I had never been (to SXSW) before. I knew it was going to be cool, but I had no idea it was going to be this cool. The grilled cheese stand blew away my expectations for what was possible. The thing was so fun, it was such a great centralized meeting place. I met so many great people and set up so many meetings through it...more importantly, the user feedback we got just being at the tables with the users while they were enjoying their beers, it was great."

Yet while GroupMe's showing at SXSW was impressive, there still has been no resolution to the pumped-up "group messaging wars" that some of the annual Austin, Texas, festival's attendees were anticipating--nor is it clear that there will be one anytime soon. Groups were created on GroupMe for sure, but they were also popping up on rivals like Beluga (newly acquired by Facebook), Fast Society, Kik, and one called GroupedIn that seemingly no one had heard of before SXSW but whose sign-toting volunteers were unmissable outside the convention center. The question for these companies now is not just which one, if any, will "win," but whether users will keep up the manic messaging.

The truth is that social SXSW-goers spent the week getting invited to group after group, on multiple services, with a blend of push notifications and text messages buzzing throughout the day and night. They didn't have to be restricted to one service--no, the "Karaoke Meetup" group could be on Beluga, and the "Saturday Brunch" group could be on Fast Society, and the "March 16 Airport Carpool" group could be on GroupMe. Unlike last year's much-touted Foursquare vs. Gowalla geolocation service matchup, using more than one group messaging service actually doesn't cause too much dissonance.

"With all these group messaging tools, there was no winner," Fast Society co-founder Matthew Rosenberg told CNET, adding that Fast Society had seen a 25 percent uptick in usage throughout the festival; though it did not distribute any grilled cheese, Rosenberg said that Fast Society's SXSW party drained 90 bottles of Patron tequila (some of which had been used to spike tequila-flavored ice cream) and 4,000 cans of Dos Equis beer. "At the end of the day, no one stood out. What I think happened was, at the end of the day the people that loved us, loved us, and they loved us even more at SXSW."

A digital marketing firm called Pop Agency did some basic number crunching--e.g. analysis of how much each company's name turned up on Twitter--and found that GroupMe prevailed at least in that category. There were 6,417 mentions of GroupMe, 5,422 of Beluga, 1,811 of Kik, and 1,303 of Fast Society according to an infographic that Pop Agency put together; the whole thing made TechCrunch writer Alexia Tsotsis quip, "If we're judging the winners by Twitter mentions, doesn't that mean Twitter actually won? Well, welcome to tech."

But for all these start-ups, perhaps the most important goal of SXSW is not "making it big," but seeing first-hand how their apps are used in an environment that can only be described as hyper-social. "I think that the ongoing debate, the big one, and that's the one that we're having sit-downs with people and discussing going forward, is managing the interruptiveness of text messaging, and making that a really seamless and solid process," GroupMe's Martocci told CNET. In other words: Yes, group messaging can be annoying in Texas-sized doses, and even the people who build the technology understand that and are working on ways to solve the problem.

Fast Society's Matthew Rosenberg said that the company is working on a feature that he was not yet willing to disclose, but said that it's "so rad." He also stressed Fast Society's pride in bucking tech-startup trends. Instead of millions of dollars in venture capital, it's running on less than $300,000 in angel funding, and instead of using the Twilio platform to power mobile messaging, it's built an in-house technology in the hopes of cutting costs long-term. "We not only kept up with our competitors, in a lot of ways we pushed out features ahead of them," he said. "Raising a ton of cash and giving up your whole company, it's just not the same as trying to struggle and prove yourself."

But things for Fast Society, which eagerly brands itself as "built to party" and filled a sprawling back yard outside of Austin's main drag for its SXSW soiree ("We killed it. Our party was nuts. I mean, our party f***ing rocked, dude. There's really no other way to put it"), it may soon feel pressured to keep up with the bigger GroupMe rather than simply offer a slicker, more contrarian app that's more finely targeted toward the young and hip. There are "tons of app updates" coming soon, Rosenberg said, and "we're figuring what's next for our company in terms of funding, in terms of next steps with that."

Both Martocci and Rosenberg--and, presumably, other CEOs in the group messaging world--seem to understand that courting users with the help of grilled cheese and tequila-spiked ice cream is very different from keeping them around once the party's over. They may realize that they should prepare for a user base that will consist of a small number of very active users and a bigger base of sporadic members who tune in every few weeks, or maybe even only a handful of times per year. The behavioral patterns for how these services will be used in the real world (because, let's face it, SXSW is not the real world) haven't panned out yet.

Granted, after Twitter and then Foursquare exploded at SXSW, critics wondered whether people would actually keep using those services when the festival closed up shop for the year, too. At this point, group messaging companies' fates are really in the users' hands.

Browser communication boost back on track.

After a security problem derailed it last year, a technology to open a high-speed browser communications link is getting back on track again.

The technology, called WebSocket, is good for Web sites that involve time-sensitive communications--multiplayer games or real-time trading, for example. A security issue raised concerns about WebSocket led to reworking of the technology, but now supporters think they've fixed WebSocket.

"It seems like it will happen very soon," said Brian Albers, vice president of development at Kaazing, which commercializes Web Sockets. "There's a meeting of the IETF at the end of the month in Prague. There's a lot of movement to get this wrapped up by then."

WebSocket abilities

What's the hurry? Simply put, a desire to use the WebSocket interface to dramatically overhaul what advanced Web programmers can do. It makes it easy to open a direct link for things like stock quotes, instant messages, or text typed into a Google Instant search box, for example.

As Web applications get more and more like applications that run natively on a computer, that becomes important. For example, in an online multiplayer game, the central game program running on a server needs to send and receive updated information from the players frequently and rapidly.

Today, communications between a browser and a Web server use the serviceable but sluggish HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) to communicate. It comes with a lot of overhead, meaning that a lot of extra data must accompany the actual information that's being exchanged. A browser must repeatedly poll a server to check for any changes.

That suits it poorly to Web pages that send or receive short, frequent updates. The amount of data for the communications overhead is dwarfs the data of the message itself by a factor of 100, and a lot of complicated programming and processing is required.

"It's like sending to business card to somebody in a cargo ship container," said Yuan Weigel, Kaazing's vice president of marketing. WebSocket, in contrast, opens a low-overhead communication channel and leaves it open for software to use.

If you want to get a flavor for its possibilities, check Kaazing's WebSocket demo page. Or try your hand the Scrabble-like WordSquared game, powered by Pusher's online WebSocket service, or Rob Hawkes' space-shooter called Rawkets. Admire the eight-computer Web-based aquarium demo, which uses WebSocket to keep the different machines in sync. Or compare (during trading hours), the performance financial quotes appearing at Cantor Index and WorldSpreads.

"You'll notice that Cantor's [prices] change on a 'polling' basis rather than live, and their pricing on this page lags Worldspreads by 2 to 3 seconds at the moment," Weigel said. "In a market where companies win or lose customers based on available real-time information, this is extremely compelling."

Of course, Kaazing has a vested interest in touting the technology. It sells proprietary server software to handle the business end of WebSocket, including higher-level technology built on the WebSocket foundation, and it also offers extras that let customers use WebSocket even if their browser doesn't have the technology built in. The company is aiming in particular for the financial services market to start.

But Kaazing isn't alone. In addition to browser makers, there's also an open-source project called Jetty that offers WebSocket support. And plenty of other companies are involved in WebSocket, including Sony, Cisco Systems, Ericsson, and Qualcomm.

Standardization progress

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is standardizing one aspect of WebSocket, the protocol by which a browser and a server communicate. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is standardizing the WebSocket interface by which Web programmers use the technology

An illustration of the cache-poisoning security risk that derailed a prototype version of Web Sockets last year.

The new "-06" version of the communication protocol looks to be, if not good enough for final use, close enough to get browser makers back in action.

One example: Firefox maker and WebSocket fan Mozilla has begun testing the -06 version of WebSocket.

"Mozilla has been heavily involved in the standardization process and supports the work of the group at the IETF," said Chris Blizzard, Mozilla's director of Web platform, in a statement to CNET. "We're to the point where we're starting to do interoperability testing and many of the major issues have been resolved. So we're getting closer to the point of having an accepted standard for Web Sockets.

He was more cautious than Kaazing, though, declining to predict the outcome of the March IETF meeting.

Microsoft, which is back in the browser game with its brand-new IE9, had pooh-poohed rival browsers' eagerness to add WebSocket before it was fully tested. Safari, Firefox, Opera, and Chrome all had support, though sometimes disabled by default. And right before the IE9 launch, IE General Manager Dean Hachomovitch alluded to a somewhat foul-mouthed video chiding browser makers for inflicting pain on Web programmers.

But Microsoft is showing some enthusiasm, even if WebSocket wasn't done in time for IE9. It's letting developers test WebSocket in a HTML5 Labs proving ground, and a week and a half ago updated that software to the -06 version of WebSocket.

Of course, getting the standard finished and building support into browsers is only the first step. After that comes getting enough people to update their browsers updated and bringing the programmers on board.

If WebSocket lives up to its potential, those problems--unlike the security hiccup--should take care of themselves.

Adobe announce Flash Player 10.2 for Android tablets.

Adobe plans to launch the latest version of its Flash Player on March 18th.

The Flash Player 10.2 will be a production release for Android 2.2 and 2.3, while Android 3.0 tablets have a beta version requiring the Android 3.0.1 point release.

Antonio Flores, Product Manager of the  Flash platform, wrote in a blog;

"The March 18 beta release of Flash Player 10.2 in conjunction with Google's first system update to Android 3.0 (version 3.0.1) currently underway for the Motorola Xoom will deliver the first phase of our work together.

This will be followed by subsequent updates, which will complete the optimizations and result in a production GA (general availability) release of Flash Player 10.2 for Android 3.0." The date of general availability of Flash Player 10.2 for tablets is undetermined at this point.

RSA issue security breach warning.

Security company RSA has issued a warning to its customers after hackers attacked token systems which generate a unique code allowing access to sensitive networks.

The attack was categorised by the company as an "Advanced Persistent Threat" and has advised customers to take "immediate action".

In an open letter to its customers RSA executive chairman Art Coviello said, “The attack resulted in certain information being extracted from RSA's systems.
“Some of that information is specifically related to RSA's SecurID two-factor authentication products.

“While at this time we are confident that the information extracted does not enable a successful direct attack on any of our RSA SecurID customers, this information could potentially be used to reduce the effectiveness of a current two-factor authentication implementation as part of a broader attack.”

iPad 2 sold out!

Supplies of the Apple iPad 2 have run out according to sources.

Gene Munster, analyst at Piper Jaffray, estimates that nearly half a million iPad 2 tablets have already been sold, the majority of these sold on Friday, launch day.

Stocks have yet to be replenished.

In a survey conducted on 236 purchasers, 70% were new buyers of iPad technology, compared to only 23% of buyers new to the iPhone 4.

This statistic is significant according to Munster who stated in a recent interview to CNN;

We believe this shows Apple is expanding its base of iPad users, which is critical to maintaining its early lead in the growing tablet market,” he said. “As the user base grows Apple's lead widens, and the company has a proven track record of building unmatched brand loyalty, which we believe will be a potent combination as the tablet market evolves."

Google to launch networking site in May.

It is rumoured that Google is to launch its own social networking site, possibly to be called 'Circles', according to technology blog 'The Next Web'.

Google are holding its annual I/0 Developers event on May 9th at the Mission Bay Conference Center, San Fransisco, where last year, they launched Google TV.

When asked for comment, a Google spokesperson stated, " We do not comment on rumour and speculation.”

Boeing's 747-8 touches down for the first time.

The first Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental touches down at Boeing Field in Seattle on Sunday. The plane completed its maiden flight about four-and-a-half hours after taking off from Paine Field in Everett, Wash.

SEATTLE--With the beautiful snow-covered mountains of Washington state behind it, Boeing's 747-8 Intercontinental made its first-ever landing today, four-and-a-half hours after taking off on its maiden flight.

The flight went about as well as could be expected, 747 chief pilot Mark Feuerstein said in a brief press conference at Boeing Field here, minutes after the plane touched down at 2:25 p.m. PT.

The plane, with its unique red, orange, and white livery, took off at 9:58 a.m. PT from Paine Field in Everett, Wash., and headed immediately toward the Olympic Peninsula, Feuerstein told the crowd gathered for the landing celebration, and then ultimately out to the tip of Washington state.

Along the way, he and co-pilot Paul Stemer took the plane, which is Boeing's longest, fastest, and in theory, most fuel- and cost-efficient ever, up to 20,000 feet and to 250 knots. They also flew it as slow as 105 knots during some of the approaches to stall tests. During the flight, they worked on a series of tests, including simple approaches to stalls, a couple of directional stability tests, and some functional checks of the airplane's systems. And, Feuerstein reported, everything went well, and the plane is "actually ready to go fly right now."

Although Boeing made the first flight of the 747-8 freighter on February 8, 2010, it waited until today to put the passenger version of the plane in the air. But Feuerstein said that, from the pilot's perspective, the wait was worth it. During the interim, Boeing implemented many changes and upgrades to the five 747-8 freighters in its test fleet. But while each of those planes has had a slightly different set of updates, the Intercontinental has benefited from all the various changes made as part of the freighter program. "The changes we've made on the freighter have been rolled into this airplane," Feuerstein said of the Intercontinental. "All those changes have been rolled into one airplane."

One test that he and Stemer put the Intercontinental through today was what he called a "steady heading side slip," which involves putting "the rudder all the way to the floor, and keeping the airplane tracking in the same direction by rolling the airplane," Feuerstein said. Essentially, that means they were flying the plane "sideways, but in a straight line." The idea is that seeing how it performs in such a test "tells us a lot about how it behaves...fortunately, it didn't surprise us at all."

Now that the first flight of the Intercontinental has been completed, Boeing plans on conducting about 600 hours of flight testing throughout the summer and fall, said Elizabeth Lund, the vice president and general manager of the 747 program. Then, sometime in the fourth quarter, she added, Boeing hopes to make its first customer delivery of the plane.

Boeing bills the new 747-8 as the next-generation of its most iconic plane and as the most fuel- and cost-efficient passenger aircraft it has produced. One major highlight is its new wing design. Created using what Boeing calls "the latest in computational fluid dynamics validated in the world's most sophisticated wind tunnels," the all-new wings are said to offer better aerodynamics and improved fuel capacity, while also allowing the plane to be as fast as, or faster than, any other passenger aircraft in the world.

The new wing design sports "fly-by-wire spoilers and ailerons that make it possible to incorporate a flight control feature known as a maneuver load-alleviation system," Boeing said. "Pioneered on the 787 Dreamliner, it changes the lift distribution over the wing during nonnormal flight conditions, reducing the load on its outboard portion." This means a smaller wing structure that is 1,400 pounds lighter than that used on the 747-current-generation 747-400, while not compromising structural integrity.

Boeing is aggressively touting the plane's economic and green credentials: it is the only passenger plane in the 400- to 500-seat market, its four General Electric GEnx 2B engines use 16 percent less fuel per seat than those on the 747-400 and 11 percent less than does Airbus' giant A380.

This is all possible, Boeing said, because of its use of advanced materials in the construction and design of the plane, as well as its use of the GEnx engines, and the form factor and materials of its wings. While most of the plane is made from new aluminum alloys, it also incorporates graphite composites in the rudder, spoilers, flaps, and other areas.

As designed, the 747-8 Intercontinental will carry 467 passengers in a three-class configuration and has a range of 8,000 nautical miles. The freighter version of the 747-8 can fly up to 4,390 nautical miles.

The Intercontinental has a wing span of 224 feet, 7 inches, and is 250 feet, 2 inches long. Its tail towers to 63 feet, 6 inches high. And its four GEnx-2B67 engines produce 66,500 pounds of thrust. The passenger plane's top cruising speed is Mach 0.86, while the freighter can fly at Mach 0.845.

AT&T-T-Mobile USA deal may face regulatory hurdles.

From a network and technology perspective, the $39 billion marriage between AT&T and T-Mobile USA is a no-brainer, but the companies may have to do some smooth talking to get the deal approved by regulators.

AT&T and T-Mobile USA, which is owned by German phone company Deutsche Telekom, each use the GSM technology and each company plans to deploy the 4G technology known as LTE in the future. AT&T plans to launch its LTE network this summer, and T-Mobile has said in the past that LTE is on its roadmap.

Currently, each company has been upgrading its network to the latest version of 3G wireless technology called HSPA+. (T-Mobile stirred up controversy last summer when it began marketing the HSPA+ network as 4G. AT&T, which initially criticized T-Mobile for this, began calling its own HSPA+ network 4G earlier this year.)

The technology synergies between T-Mobile and AT&T are stark contrast to how T-Mobile lined up with Sprint Nextel, which had been rumored to be eying T-Mobile for more than two years. Sprint uses a different network technology called CDMA, which is the same technology that Verizon Wireless uses. What's more Sprint is using WiMax for its next generation wireless network.

While regulators would have been much more eager to see No. 3 Sprint Nextel merge with No. 4 T-Mobile so that they could take on No. 1 Verizon Wireless and No. 2 AT&T, the reality is that such a scenario would have been an integration nightmare for Sprint. Sprint is still struggling to make sense of its 2005 acquisition of Nextel, which also used a completely different technology.

"There's no question that AT&T and T-Mobile are a very good fit from a technology standpoint," said Charles Golvin, an analyst with Forrester Research. "A Sprint-T-Mobile deal would have given these companies scale, but it made sense from an integration standpoint."

But even though the deal makes sense from a technology standpoint, it won't necessarily be smooth sailing. For one, regulators are likely to scrutinize this deal closely. And secondly, even though AT&T and T-Mobile use the same technology, they use different wireless spectrum bands to deliver their services. This means that AT&T will have to move T-Mobile's customers to different spectrum bands in order to integrate the networks.

First let's look at the regulatory picture. The biggest issue for the FCC and for the Department of Justice, which also needs to approve this merger, is whether a merger between these companies would concentrate too much power in the hands of a single company, which could affect pricing and services for consumers. T-Mobile has always been a price leader. It's safe to say that AT&T will likely not adopt T-Mobile pricing, which means that consumers will be losing a more affordable player in the wireless market.

And the reason is simple. It won't need to. AT&T and Verizon Wireless already control more than 40 percent of the existing wireless market. And T-Mobile, the smallest of the major wireless operators, would concentrate AT&T's market power further. A combined AT&T and T-Mobile would have nearly 130 million subscribers, which is a third more than Verizon Wireless, the No. 1 nationwide player in the country. The new AT&T-T-Mobile would also have twice as many customers as No. 3. Sprint Nextel.

The FCC has already expressed concern over the competitive landscape in wireless. In May the FCC warned that the industry is getting too concentrated. In its report, the agency said that since 2003, market concentration in wireless has increased 32 percent. The report indicates that 60 percent of the nation's subscribers and revenue come from the country's two largest wireless providers: AT&T and Verizon Wireless. The FCC noted that these companies are continuing to gain customers as other national operators, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile USA, have been losing subscribers.

So far the FCC hasn't issued a statement regarding the proposed AT&T-T-Mobile merger. But insiders at the agency have said previously that they would be more concerned with an acquisition between AT&T and Verizon Wireless and either Sprint Nextel or T-Mobile USA than a merger involving Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile.

AT&T and Verizon Wireless have scoffed at the FCC's assertion that the wireless industry is not competitive. And the companies have repeatedly pointed to the fact that there are often four to five players in almost every major market in the U.S. Smaller players such as MetroPCS and Leap Wireless have aggressively moved into new markets. And U.S. Cellular, a regional wireless carrier, has gotten high marks in terms of customer satisfaction in many national surveys.

But the fact remains that AT&T and Verizon Wireless have far more customers than any of these smaller players. Indeed, Golvin estimates that a combined AT&T and T-Mobile would mean that three out of four wireless subscribers in the U.S. would be a customer of either AT&T or Verizon Wireless.

What's more, combining AT&T and T-Mobile, means that there would be only one national wireless carrier using the GSM technology. Verizon and Sprint Nextel use CDMA, as mentioned above. This would give consumers, who want to use their phones overseas in places such as Europe, only one choice in national U.S. carrier.

At least one congressional leader is already pushing the FCC and Department of Justice to take a hard look at this deal.

"With every passing day, wireless services are becoming more and more important to the way we communicate," John D. Rockefeller IV (D-West Virginia), chairman of the Senate's Commerce Science and Transportation committee, said in a statement. "So it is absolutely essential that both the Department of Justice and the FCC leave no stone unturned in determining what the impact of this combination is on the American people."

While it is possible that the FCC and/or the Justice Department could simply stop the merger from happening, it's unlikely they'd do that, Golvin said. Instead, it's more likely that these agencies would put conditions on the merger and require AT&T to divest some of its wireless spectrum assets, he added.

"I don't believe this will have a 'yes' or 'no' outcome," Golvin said. "I think what the regulators do will be more about the extent of AT&T's divestiture."

In fact, the FCC took this approach when it approved Verizon's $28.1 billion merger of regional carrier Alltel Wireless, which closed in January 2009. Instead of analyzing this merger on a national basis, the FCC analyzed each individual market where Verizon and Alltel operated. And in markets where there was too much concentration, the FCC required that the Verizon sell those wireless assets. All told, Verizon agreed to sell operations in 105 markets where Alltel also operated.

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson spoke to the Wall Street Journal on Sunday and said that he is confident that the company will get regulatory approval. He said that the merger will help "conserve spectrum at a time when that resource is in tight supply."

He also said that the wireless market is already very competitive.

"This is probably the most fiercely competitive wireless market in the world," he was quoted as saying. "The majority of Americans have the option of five different wireless carriers."

Regulatory issues may be only one hurdle the companies face as they look at integrating the two wireless networks. While it's true that T-Mobile and AT&T each use GSM technology, the carriers also use different bands of spectrum to deliver their services. Specifically, T-Mobile uses the spectrum it bought in the AWS spectrum auction in 2006 to build its 3G wireless network.

AT&T also acquired spectrum in that auction. And it is using this AWS spectrum to build its LTE network. AT&T uses its 850MHz and 1900MHz spectrum to deliver its 3G service. Part of the reason that AT&T wanted T-Mobile in the first place was to get more of the AWS spectrum for its LTE network.

Meanwhile, T-Mobile has no additional spectrum to deploy LTE, since it's been using the AWS spectrum for its 3G service. What this means is that once AT&T and T-Mobile merge, AT&T will have to move all of T-Mobile's existing 3G customers (which includes the supposed 4G HSPA+ customers) to AT&T's 850MHz and 1900MHz spectrum. This means T-Mobile customers will need new handsets, since the existing T-Mobile 3G HSPA and 4G HSPA+ handsets will no longer work on the AWS spectrum.

The migration of additional T-Mobile customers to AT&T's already congested 3G network could also be painful for existing AT&T customers. But Golvin believes that in the long run, AT&T will actually benefit from the merger with T-Mobile because it will allow AT&T to use the newly upgraded backhaul systems that T-Mobile has put in place to link its radio network to the hard-wired Internet and telephone backbone.

"For some period of time, customers from either network may find that the quality is not what they would like," Golvin said. "But AT&T won't be able to just turn off the T-Mobile network. It will take time and it will be done in stages. I think what might be more painful for some T-Mobile customers is that they were T-Mobile customers because they didn't want to be AT&T customers."

The deal comes just days before the wireless industry meets in Orlando, Fla., for the CTIA's spring trade show and conference. On Tuesday morning, CEOs from three of the four major U.S. wireless carriers--AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and Sprint Nextel--will take the stage for a roundtable discussion.

T-Mobile USA told All Things Digital that it has dropped out of the panel discussion at CTIA. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is also expected to give a speech Tuesday morning from CTIA. It's unclear how much if anything the players involved in the merger will say at CTIA. But CNET will be there, so stay tuned.

Over 2 mill download IE 9 first day.

Microsoft has revealed that 2.35 million people upgraded to Internet Explorer 9 in the first 24 hours of availability.

Microsoft's Ryan Gavin points out that this figure equates to over 27 downloads per second.

The full Beta version was released on Monday evening with many new features such as an improved streamlined design, pinned sites and a HTML friendly interface.

IE currently holds a 49% share of the market in the US, compared to the 28% held by Firefox.


However Firefox stole the majority share in the European market and the launch of Mozilla's Firefox 3 browser in 2008 was downloaded 8 million times in the first 24 hours.

2 space crews mark 1 week together in orbit.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – The 12 astronauts aboard the orbiting shuttle-station complex shared a few more maintenance chores Saturday, taking out the trash and doing their part for clean air as their weeklong visit wound down.

The hatches between Discovery and the International Space Station will close Sunday afternoon, and the shuttle will undock first thing Monday.

Both crews worked to rejuvenate the space station's air system. The oxygen generator as well as the carbon dioxide removal system have been acting up.

They also made sure a Japanese cargo carrier was loaded properly with garbage.

The supply ship will be let loose at the end of this month and plunge through the atmosphere, burning up. The vessel is full of packing foam from all the equipment that was delivered by Discovery. The foam encasing the humanoid robot R2 will be stuffed in as well, once the astronauts unwrap it.

R2 is the first humanoid robot in space. It was part of the new stowage unit delivered last Saturday by shuttle Discovery.

Mission Control gave Discovery's six astronauts two extra days at the 220-mile-high lab — for a total of nine days — to help with all the unloading and repair work.

"Hope you are enjoying your extended stay in your out-of-this-world accommodations. The innkeeper says you can stay a couple more days if you behave," Mission Control joked.

It's the last voyage for Discovery, NASA's oldest and most traveled shuttle. The spaceship will be retired following Wednesday's planned touchdown and sent to the Smithsonian Institution for display.

Only two more shuttle missions remain. Endeavour is set to soar in mid-April, followed by Atlantis at the end of June.