White House backs plan to reserve 700MHz 'D Block' for public safety network

Public safety agencies in the US have been pushing for some time to have the so-called 'D Block' portion of the 700MHz wireless spectrum all to themselves, and it looks like they can now officially count on the support of the White House in that effort. The Obama administration announced today that it's backing plans to reserve the airwaves -- estimated to be worth $3 billion if they were auctioned off -- for a new national public safety network, and it also plans to ask Congress to approve the additional spending needed to actually build out the network, which the FCC estimates could cost as much as $15 billion. As The Wall Street Journal notes, the fate of the proposed network is now largely in the hands of House Republicans, who remain divided on the plan -- although some key members have come out in support of it in recent days.

White House backs plan to reserve 700MHz 'D Block' for public safety network originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Jan 2011 16:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/-FQyCwBmZxY/

Alicia Witt BHARTI AIRTEL Brody Dalle Britney Spears Brooke Burns

Amazon to buy out European movie rental and streaming service LoveFilm

After merging its DVD rental business with LoveFilm in 2008, Amazon has now agreed to buy all of the remaining shares for $312 million. Pending regulatory approval, the deal will complete in the first quarter of 2011.

LoveFilm, with extensive distribution rights in the UK, Germany, Sweden, Norway and Denmark, is usually referred to as the 'Netflix of Europe,' and this purchase is obviously intended to give Amazon a strong entry into the European DVD rental and online streaming market. Amazon is hoping that LoveFilm's entrenchment will be enough to beat out Netflix, which after conquering America must surely have its sights set on Europe.

Amazon to buy out European movie rental and streaming service LoveFilm originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 20 Jan 2011 07:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/01/20/amazon-to-buy-out-european-movie-rental-and-streaming-service-lovefilm/

Amber Arbucci ALLIANCE DATA SYSTEMS Amanda Righetti Arielle Kebbel Ashley Tisdale

?Angry Turds? Is Like ?Angry Birds? Except With, Yes, Turds

Ever wish Angry Birds had more poop in it? Well look no further than the App Store today, as Apps Genius has launched Angry Turds. As a monkey in Angry Turds, you get to battle evil island explorers who have stolen your monkey babies with various projectile weapons. The concept is similar to Angry Birds as your objective is to throw stuff but the stuff here goes beyond rocks to coconuts, turds, banana bombs and grand poop-bas (I am so glad I never spent any money getting a journalism degree).

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/gFHPqvZqGIQ/

FIDELITY NATIONAL INFORMATION SVCS Ashley Scott Ananda Lewis ALLTEL SAIC

Tons of Computers Still Infected With Conficker Worm, Apparently [Security]

Remember the great Conficker scare of 2008? Well although the botnet malware hasn't done anything since beginning its infection rampage, the worm is still active on millions of computers, and could be ordered into action at any point. More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/vHZBFljMHSU/tons-of-computers-still-infected-with-conficker-worm-apparently

Ali Campoverdi Bali Rodriguez KDDI Chloë Sevigny MOBILE TELESYSTEMS

A Covert Surveillance System Small Enough to Fit in Your Pocket for Portable Evidence Capture

Brickhouse Security offers a small flashlight (0.9″ X 4.3″) with an 8-LED array for good light and a 2MP camcorder to capture evidence when needed.  The Flashlight Hidden Camcorder with Recording has a rechargeable battery that gives you 2-3 hours recording time while using the LEDs or 5 hours without LEDs.  The camera can record [...]

Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2011/01/27/a-covert-surveillance-system-small-enough-to-fit-in-your-pocket-for-portable-evidence-capture/

Ana Paula Lemes APPLIED MATERIALS FIDELITY NATIONAL INFORMATION SVCS Ashley Scott Ananda Lewis

The Colour Clock, a beautiful marriage of HEX and time

With apologies to the linguistic sensitivities of any Americans that may be reading, feast your eyes upon The Colour Clock.

Whether you're looking for colorific inspiration for a website you're designing, or merely looking for an attractive and easy to read clock, The Colour Clock is for you. By default you get the current time, but you can click a button to show the current HEX value of the background color -- and yes, the HEX value ticks up, just like the clock. As the seconds pass, the background color changes, and slowly but surely -- bit by bit [get it?] -- you're exposed to delicious new shades.

Mac OS X users even get downloadable screensavers! Windows users will have to settle for pinning the tab in their browser, or dragging it to a second display.

The Colour Clock, a beautiful marriage of HEX and time originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 28 Jan 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/01/28/the-colour-clock-a-beautiful-marriage-of-hex-and-time/

Anna Faris Ashanti PRICELINECOM Adrianne Palicki INVENTEC

Start Fund: Yuri Milner, SV Angel Offer EVERY New Y Combinator Startup $150k

Everything just changed in the angel investing world. Two years ago Yuri Milner, through his investment firm DST, disrupted the traditional Silicon Valley venture capital model when he began investing in the hottest startups - companies like Facebook, Zynga and Groupon - at very high valuations and extremely easy deal terms. He looks brilliant in hindsight, with all of his U.S. investments at significantly higher valuations since he invested. Most top VC firms have begun emulating DST's deal structure. Now he's partnering (as an individual, not as part of DST) with Ron Conway's angel fund, SV Angel. And they're making a bold investment move. This evening they've just made a blanket investment offer to every Y Combinator startup in the most recent batch. They're going to invest in all of them. Every single one. And this is the biggest Y Combinator class to date - some 40 new startups.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/7lIru3MWqfI/

SAIC KONINKLIJKE KPN QUANTA COMPUTER ACER Amber Heard

Volkswagen's New XL1 Plug-In Hybrid Promises 260 MPG [Cars]

Volkswagen is showing off their new XL1 prototype at the Qatar Motor Show, and they're proud of the fact it gets 261 miles per gallon with the plug-in electric/gas hybrid engine. But they're also excited it will go into production. More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/sbP1TOYRAx4/volkswagens-new-xl1-plug+in-hybrid-promises-260-mpg

AMERICA MOVIL Amanda Marcum AMKOR TECHNOLOGY Beyoncé Charlize Theron

Kinect 3D Viewer now available in Mac App Store, but don't get too excited

Kinect 3D Viewer
The first Kinect app has just popped up in the Mac App Store, but unfortunately it does exactly what its name suggests. Kinect 3D Viewer lets you... view the output from the Kinect depth-sensing camera... in 3D!

It actually has two output options: you can either see a 3D point cloud, which excellently shows off the resolution of depth detection, or you can "view yourself in 3D", which looks very similar to the proof-of-concept Linux/Kinect hacks that we saw in November. There's no information about how the Kinect integration was achieved, but presumably the developers used a Mac port of libfreenect.

Hopefully there will be a follow-up app that actually does something -- but having said that, how many Mac users with Xbox 360s can there possibly be?

Kinect 3D Viewer now available in Mac App Store, but don't get too excited originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 18 Jan 2011 06:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/01/18/kinect-3d-viewer-now-available-in-mac-app-store-but-dont-get-t/

Autumn Reeser Anna Faris Ashanti PRICELINECOM Adrianne Palicki