HTC Taiwan-based  maker of smartphones released  this week its entry-level Explorer handset, aiming people changing from feature phones to smartphones.
 
According to HTC,  the new Explorer features a 3.2-inch touchscreen and a 3-megapixel camera, and offers easy Web access, Taiwan’s Central News Agency reported.

HTC is planning  to build phones priced betwen $200 and $250 to enter the mass consumer market.
 

Giant electronics company, Samsung Electronics Philippines Corp. (Sepco) aims  to launch  next year around  100 locally developed applications for its Smart TV offerings.

Product manager for Samsung flat panel TV Jan Romanrevealed to  the BusinessMirror that the South Korean-owned company has contacted  local developers to create  applications for use in this next-generation TV models, known as Smart TV.

Sepco, she added, may pretty soon release  a recipe app for Filipino mothers and also  a Video on Demand app just like Hulu and Netflix online video services in the US.

Yesterday, Sepco had  a Smart TV Apps Congress in Rockwell Center, Makati, to tap  its efforts for local developers to create Philippine-made applications

  Videoconferencing giant Skype is getting hold  of New York-based mobile group messaging service provider GroupMe.

 It did not give terms of the deal, but  Skype said the acquisition will develop more as  it provide a "global multi-modal and multi-platform communications experience."

"Skype and GroupMe have a shared vision of creating applications and experiences that are the daily communications choice for a billion people. We will continue to seek the top talent and technology to make that vision a reality," said Skype CEO Tony Bates.

He added that GroupMe has built  "an incredibly sticky group messaging experience that works across mobile devices and platforms, making this a perfect addition to the voice, video and text products in the Skype family."

Meanwhile,  Jared Hecht, GroupMe’s Co-Founder said there is a natural affinity between Skype and GroupMe.
 

On Thursday, scientists of NASA  have found its latest evidence that briny water flows on Mars throughout its warmest months. This update  increases chances that life might  exist on the Red Planet, the space agency said.

NASA initially discovered  signs of water on Mars over  a decade ago, however earlier indications show  that any existing water would be frozen and concentrated at the poles.

Earlier reviewed  images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite reveal  dark, finger-like features that goes  down some slopes and crater walls on the planet in  its late spring through summer, fading in the Martian winter.

"This is the best evidence we have to date of a liquid water occurring today on Mars," said Philip Christensen, a geophysicist at Arizona State University, Tempe, in a NASA panel announcing the findings in Washington.
 

Facebook is persuading its members to see face to face  while chatting over the computer.

The social networking magnate  launched a video-calling feature on Wednesday in partnership with Skype, the popular Internet video-chat provider.

The product was introduced  a week after Google launched a competing social network, called Google+, which also includes a video-chatting program.

With Facebook, a "call" button at the top of users’ profile pages will be installed, and by  clicking that or finding someone in a new "buddy list" bar on the right-hand side, Facebook users can chat face to face  as long as they have webcams. The company began turning that service on for millions of users on Wednesday and will add it to more accounts over time, spokespeople said.

On Wednesday, Facebook  also revealed  a change to its instant-messaging service, it  now permits people to build on-the-fly group conversations.

But Mark Zuckerberg clarified that  like with most video-chat services, users will have  to install a plugin before they can use it.

Giant video game  company Nintendo  on Tuesday flaunted a prototype gaming system called Wii U, which has a smartphone-like remote control that enables gamers play on two screens at the same time.

Features of the  controller are: touch-sensitive, 6.2-inch screen  similar to an Android phone,  that players can use to zoom in on TV images and to interact with games that show up both on the remote control and on the television.

The Wii U remote can also connect  to the Internet, permitting  users to essentially throw photos or videos from the controller onto the television.

According to Nintendo executives,  the Wii U is just a prototype. They did not give out  details about when the system will be available in stores or how much it will cost. Only one game is officially in the works for the system: "Lego City Stories," which Nintendo is developing in partnership with TT Games, the company said.

FBI has announced that a single click on a fake e-mail link or website has cost many U.S. companies nearly $1 million each. And it has brought them into a world of international collusion deserving of a spy novel, linking them to a crime ring connected to six Chinese port cities near the Russian border.

In a seriously worded warning that contained an exceptional level of detail for an FBI press release, the agency is cautioning U.S. businesses and banks to be cautious of wire transfers going to Chinese cities of Raohe, Fuyuan, Jixi City, Xunke, Tongjiang and Dongning.

Business dealings headed to those Chinese cities should be "heavily scrutinized, especially for clients that have no prior transaction history with companies in the Heilongjiang province," the FBI said.

Wire transfers, sometimes in the $900,000 range were frequently sent from U.S. firms to accredited Chinese trading companies in Heilongjiang.

In a statement released on April 26, the FBI said criminals had recently tried to steal $20 million and got away with $11 million, an astounding success rate.

Online criminals have adapted their aim away from consumer accounts and onto larger business accounts, according to experts.

On Tuesday, Google launched an invitation-only test version of an online music service, not for selling  songs but permits  users to put their collection for use on various devices.

"When you add your music to the new service, you can listen to it on the Web on any compatible device," Google product manager Paul Joyce said in announcing the new service.

Google was working on to cutting  deals with music labels by creating  a service that allows  people store digital versions of songs they already have in what you call  an online "locker" which they can access using gadgets linked to the Internet.

 20,000 songs could be stored at Google Music, Joyce said at the Internet giant’s annual developers conference in San Francisco.
 

Nokia Corp. announced that it will slash 7,000 jobs worldwide Wednesday, by both layoffs and outsourcing, as it aims to cut costs and converge with its top competitors in the smartphone industry. Many of the 4,000 cutbacks, due by the end of 2012, will be from Denmark, Finland and Britain, Nokia said.

The company also intends to assign workers from China, Finland, India, Britain and the United States to Accenture PLC as it outsources Symbian platform affairs to the global management-consulting firm, in a dominant shift of strategy.

Nokia coordinated company briefings for thousands of personnel in various cities in Finland, where it has 13,000 workers but obliquely supplies work for more than 20,00 people.

The announcements arrived as the world’s top cellphone maker attempts to cut operating expenses by $1.5 billion (1 billion euros) by 2013 in the middle of intense competition that has seen its market share plunge and profits collapse.

Enterprises had been anxiously awaiting signals about company policy from Stephen Elop, the new CEO, since he took over in September. Even more they anticipated word on strategy adjustment since the the February 11 statement that Nokia and Microsoft Corp. were working together to entice rivals such as Research in Motion, Apple Inc. and Google Inc.

Hackers are taking part in assisting recovery efforts in Japan after the 9.0 magnitude quake and tsunami in the country last month.

Although its bad reputation in prominent media, the expression "hacker" tackles a comprehensive array of oftentimes beneficial and convenient activities – distinctly in reference to hobbyists and inventors who create custom gears to comply with their needs.

Tokyo Hackerspace a group of hackers, are using their talents to aid with relief efforts in Japan, including putting up a network of radiation monitors around the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

"The idea basically came from feeling helpless," said "Akiba," a member of Tokyo Hackerspace who helped head the project, stated in an article by PC World Magazine.

The project started as a option to the government’s efforts to gather and distribute radiation information, according to PC World.

With no Geiger counters directly available in the first week after the quake, the groups made an online call for -and immediately acquired- the needed gadgets.

Converting the Geiger counters’ analog output into digital data that could be uploadedon the Internet was the next step.

"I wanted to put the other Geiger counter up publicly and as quickly as possible to share the data with others in Tokyo. Unfortunately, the Geiger counters are completely analog and there was no way to pull data from it. So, being the nerd that I am, I proceeded to hack it into what I wanted. These are the project details of the process of converting a cold-war era, analog Geiger counter into a device that can digitally send data to Pachube, a public sensor feed aggregator," Akiba said in a blog post.