Sunday, January 31, 2010

10 symptoms not to ignore

Heed these warning signs and know when to call your doctor.

From MayoClinic.com

You already know that obvious symptoms, such as chest pain and severe abdominal pain, require immediate medical attention. But the not-so-obvious symptoms may leave you wondering whether you need to seek care. Here's a list of symptoms that merit at least a call to your doctor. While some of them are more urgent than others, none should be ignored.

1. Unexplained weight loss

Losing weight when you're not trying to may sound good, but in reality it can signal a health problem. If you've lost up 10 percent of your weight during the past six months—for instance, 15 pounds (7 kilograms) if you weigh 150 pounds (68 kilograms)—see your doctor.

An unexplained drop in weight could be caused by a number of conditions, such as an overactive thyroid (hyperthyroidism), depression, liver disease, cancer or other noncancerous disorders, or disorders that interfere with how your body absorbs nutrients (malabsorption disorders).

2. Persistent or high fever

Fever isn't an illness, but it is often a sign of one. Most of the time, a fever means your body is fighting a common viral or bacterial infection. However, a persistent low-grade fever—over 102 F (38.9 C)—that lasts for three days or more should be checked by your doctor. Similarly, if you have a high fever—greater than 104 F (40 C)—or if you're otherwise severely ill, see your doctor as soon as possible.

If you have an immune system problem or take drugs that suppress your immune system, fever may not be a reliable warning sign. Ask your primary doctor or oncologist what would signal a need for an evaluation.

Persistent fever can signal hidden infections, which could be anything from a urinary tract infection to tuberculosis. At other times, malignant conditions—such as lymphomas—cause prolonged or persistent fevers, as can some medications.

3. Shortness of breath

Feeling short of breath—more than that caused by a stuffy nose or exercise—could signal an underlying health problem. If you're unable to get your breath or you're gasping for air or wheezing, seek emergency medical care. Feeling breathless when lying down, with or without exertion, also is a symptom that needs to be medically evaluated without delay.

Causes for breathlessness may include chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, chronic bronchitis, asthma, pneumonia, a blood clot in the lung (pulmonary embolism), as well as other heart and lung problems. Difficulty breathing can also occur with panic attacks, which are episodes of intense anxiety that cause physical symptoms.

4. Unexplained changes in bowel habits

People often wonder what "normal" means in terms of bowel movements. It varies widely, but anywhere from three times a day to three times a week is considered normal. Know what is typical for you. Call your doctor if you notice unusual or unexplained changes such as:

  • Bloody stools
  • Diarrhea lasting a week
  • Constipation that lasts for more than three weeks
  • Unexplained urges to have a bowel movement
  • Black or tarry-colored stools

Changes in bowel habits may signal a bacterial infection—such as campylobacter or salmonella—or a viral infection or parasitic infestation. Among other possible causes are inflammatory bowel disease and colon cancer.

5. Delirium

Delirium is sudden severe confusion and rapid change in mental state, such as from lethargy to agitation. Close friends or family members may be the ones who notice this symptom. Immediate medical evaluation is warranted if you have any of the following:

  • Sudden confused thinking
  • Disorientation—confusion about time or place
  • Sudden personality or behavior changes, such as becoming aggressive
  • Sudden problems with concentration or memory

Changes in behavior or thinking may be due to many problems, including infection, anemia, low blood sugar, or psychiatric conditions or medications, especially ones you've recently started taking.

6. Sudden severe headache

Headaches are common and generally not a cause for concern. However, a sudden severe headache could signal a serious problem. Seek prompt medical attention if you experience:

  • Sudden severe headache like a clap of thunder
  • Headache accompanied by a fever, stiff neck, rash, confusion or seizures
  • New pattern of headaches after age 55

The last item may indicate that you have temporal arteritis—inflammation of the arteries in the scalp, brain and eyes—a rare, but treatable condition that usually begins in middle age. Other possible causes of severe headache may include a brain tumor or aneurysm.

7. Sudden weakness, loss of vision or speech

If you have these signs or symptoms, minutes count. They're warning signs of a stroke or a transient ischemic attack (TIA), sometimes called a ministroke. Seek immediate emergency medical care if you have:

  • Sudden weakness or numbness on one side of your body
  • Sudden dimness, blurring or loss of vision
  • Loss of speech or trouble understanding others
  • Unexplained dizziness or unsteadiness, or a sudden fall
  • Sudden severe headache, like a "bolt out of the blue"

8. Flashes of light

The sudden sensation of seeing flashing lights may signal retinal detachment. Immediate medical care may prevent permanent vision loss.

9. Feeling full after eating very little

Early satiety—feeling full sooner than normal or after eating less than usual—that lasts for more than a week should be checked by your doctor. It may be accompanied by other signs and symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, bloating, fever, and weight loss or gain. If so, tell your doctor about these signs or symptoms, too.

Possible causes of early satiety include heartburn and irritable bowel syndrome, as well as more-serious problems such as gastric outlet obstruction or esophageal cancer or stomach problems.

10. Hot, red or swollen joint

If one of your joints is swollen or inflamed, it may signal a joint infection, which requires emergency care. Other causes may include gout or some types of arthritis.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Keep any Window on top . . . .

Ever wished you could keep those always viewing windows “always on top”? well here’s an app that does just that. cool for using with software's like “skype”

The software is called “DeskPins” and below are more info and where to go to download this freeware.

Read more HERE!!

image

DeskPins allows you to keep any window on top of others with a few clicks. While many programs offer this as a feature, others do not, and in such cases DeskPins comes handy. In addition, you can also define rules that use the window title (with wildcard support) and can automatically keep any window on top that matches your rules. The `on top` window is marked with a colored pin that can be quickly removed by simply clicking on it, returning the window to its normal state. (Note: Even though not officially Vista compatible, we tested it and it appeared to work fine on Vista)

PRODUCT DETAILS

Publisher . . . . . . . . . . Elias Fotinis

File Size . . . . . . .  . . . 95 kb

Version . . . . . . . . . . . 1.30

Added . . . . . . . . . . . . Sep 01, 2004

License . . . . . . . . . . .  Freeware

Windows . . . . . . . . . . .98/ME/2000/XP/se7en

Requirements . . . . . . . .None

Other products . . . . . . . All 3 products from this developer

Download this app HERE!!

Top 5 sexiest video games

INTRO

Valve Software

INTRO

Video games can be sexy. No, I don’t mean the curvaceous female characters that perform feats of heroism while wearing ... very little. I’m talking about believable chemistry between characters, flirtatious banter and sexy attitude that has more to do with butt-kicking than butt-baring. In fact, more often than not, what isn’t seen is what makes a game sexy.

'Halo 3: ODST'

Bungie/Microsoft

1. 'Halo 3: ODST'

It was nice getting a break from the inscrutable Master Chief to follow characters with a little drama goin’ on. The frustrated relationship between ex-squeezes Dutch (played by Nathan Fillion) and Dare (played by Tricia Helfer) was not only believable, it was interesting.
Things start out on a tense note, with Dare giving orders to her former beau. But once the mission goes bad, boy sets out to save girl – offering some nice glimpses into the complexity of their relationship and highlighting the chemistry between the two characters.

'Half-Life 2'

Valve Software

2. 'Half-Life 2'

Alyx Vance, the heroine in “Half-Life 2,” is the kind of woman you’d want to have a beer with. She’s funny, she’s smart and she’s wearing proper attire for her mission (saving the human race from aliens). No wonder scientist Gordon Freeman, the protagonist of the series, really digs her.
Or does he?
The are-they-or-aren’t-they question is a constant thread running through the long-running sci-fi shooter series. Vance’s dad, Eli, drops hints that the two are made for each other, but to date, there’s been no consummation of the duo’s simmering chemistry.
Let's face it guys, we all can relate to geeky Gordan Freeman and Alyx is our video game girl next door. We'll have to see what happens in “Episode 3” and - dare we ask - “Half Life 3?”

'Bayonetta'

Sega

3. 'Bayonetta'

You would be hard pressed to find a more physically exaggerated female character in a video game, but don't let Bayonetta's outsize assets fool you. This is a strong female character who doesn't take crap from anyone. Sure, there is an overabundant amount of salacious stuff in the game, but it’s all done with tongue firmly planted in cheek.
Bayonetta may just be the most sexy/deadly woman in a video game that we’ve seen so far. OK, you get the occasional peep show, but make no mistake, Bayonetta’s no brainless bimbo. When she appears to be at her most vulnerable, she is at her most deadly. And damn, that’s sexy.

'Mass Effect'

Bioware

4. 'Mass Effect'

Alien girls are easy ... well not really. “Mass Effect” is famous for the adult choices you can make, and among those choices are the relationships you can have with either Kaidan, Ashley, or the blue-skinned alien Liara.
What’s sexy about “Mass Effect” besides sex scenes? You have to work to get to know the female characters and if you want to make any romance happen you need to say the right thing, at the right time - a good lesson that applies in real life too, kids. “Mass Effect” illustrates how video games are maturing with their audience - and “Mass Effect 2,” out Jan. 26, is a continuation of that theme.

'Uncharted 2: Among Thieves'

Sony

5. 'Uncharted 2: Among Thieves'

“Uncharted 2,” our choice for best game of 2009, seemed to hit the right notes with men and women. And chief among its many attributes is the love triangle between hero Nathan Drake and the two women in his life, Chloe and Elena.
The chemistry between Drake and his female paramours is palpable and the jealousy between Elena – his lady friend in the last “Uncharted” and Chloe – the bad-girl treasure hunter – is really well played. Throughout the game you witness Nathan struggle with his feelings for both women, which begs the question, are you on Team Chloe or Team Elena?

Vote: Which video game do you think is the sexiest?

Monday, January 25, 2010

Apple, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo compared at the macro level

We all love a good debate about how the tech giants of today are competing with each other, but rarely do we get a handy reference sheet like this to point people to. Nick Bilton of the New York Times has put together a segment-by-segment comparison between America's tech heavyweights, which does a fine job of pinpointing who competes with whom and where. We find the gaps in coverage more intriguing than the overlaps, though, with Microsoft's only unticked box -- mobile hardware -- raising habitual rumors of a Pink phone. Apple's absence from the provision of mapping services might also soon be at an end, given the company acquired map maker Placebase in July of last year (see Computerworld). Anyway, there should be plenty more for you to enjoy, so hit the source for the full chart and get analyzin'.

BlackBerry How To: Change E-Mail Signatures (BIS & BES)

1) BlackBerry Personal E-Mail Auto Signatures: BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS)

To create, change or do away with an auto signature for a BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) Web-mail account, you first need to log in to your wireless carrier's website--you may also need to create a new account if you haven't already. To do so, surf over to your carrier's website and either create a new user name and password or login to an existing account.

After logging into your carrier's website, you should locate the BlackBerry messaging, or BIS, section of the page. (You can also quickly find your carrier's BIS page by performing a Google search for the carrier's name and "BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS).") Once on the BIS page, create at new account, if necessary, or login.

Next, you can choose to add a new Web mail account to BIS, or if you've already added one, there's an option to edit existing accounts. If you've not yet created an account, follow the on-screen process to enter an e-mail address and login information, then save your changes. Once an account is added, you'll be returned to the main BIS page.

A default e-mail signature will be assigned to each new BIS e-mail account you add, something like: "Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T." Until you physically remove this default auto-signature, it will appear at the bottom of each and every message you send. This is a good way to spot newbie BlackBerry owners, as many beginner users aren't even aware that the signature is there.

To remove, edit or create a new BIS e-mail auto-signature, login to your carrier's site, locate the BIS page and click the Edit option below the e-mail account you wish to modify. On the following page, you'll see an e-mail signature option with a space for text beneath it. If you've never modified your BIS account, you'll see the default signature mentioned above, within that space. You can delete it completely, modify it or create a new signature. Once you have, click the Save button.

After you've got your signature the way you want it, return to the main BIS page and click the link that says Send Service Books. This helps to ensure that your changes are applied.

2) BlackBerry Corporate E-Mail Auto Signatures: BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES)

The easiest way to create or modify BlackBerry e-mail auto-signatures for corporate or BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) accounts is via your handset and not a Web-based interface, like the BIS interface described above. Also, BES mail accounts do not have any sort of default signature applied, so unless you create one yourself--or an admin does it for you--your BlackBerry mail will not have an auto-signature.

To create or change a BES e-mail auto-signature, you should first open your on-device Messaging app, where all of your BES messages are stored. Next, hit the BlackBerry Menu key--which is located directly to the left of your trackball--and scroll down until you can click on Options. Within the Messages Options menu, choose E-Mail Settings.

On the following E-Mail Settings page, make sure the Use Auto Signature option is set to Yes, and then fill in whatever message you want to appear at the bottom of your e-mail, within the blank on-screen box. As mentioned earlier, common BlackBerry e-mail signatures include name, address and contact information, but you may also wish to use something to alert message recipients that your mailing was sent via BlackBerry. For instance, "Please excuse any typos. Message was sent via BlackBerry."

Finally, hit the BlackBerry Escape key to the right of your trackball to exit the screen, and then save your changes when prompted.

You can also add or change your BES e-mail signature using RIM's BlackBerry Desktop Manager software, though you need to have chosen the enterprise e-mail option when you first used Desktop Manager. If you'd like to employ the software to modify your BES auto-signature but don't have the corporate mail option in Desktop Manager, simply uninstall the app, then reinstall and choose the enterprise setup option.

Next, connect your BlackBerry to your PC via the standard mini USB cord and fire up Desktop Manager. You should see an E-Mail Settings tab on Desktop Manager's opening page. If you do not, you need to uninstall and reinstall the app, as previously mentioned. Click E-Mail Settings and add whatever text you'd like to use as an auto-signature to the blank on-screen box. When you're done, just hit the Apply button and close the program.

Finally, you need to make sure that you have set your device to employ a BES e-mail auto-signature. To check this, follow the process described at the start of this section and make sure the Use Auto Signature option on the on-device E-Mail Settings page is enabled.

Unboxing Nexus One, iPhone 3GS and HTC HD2 Side by Side (Battle of the sexiest)

Both Nexus One and HTC HD2 are powered by 1Ghz Snapdragon processor.

Nexus One has 3.7’’ capacitive AMOLED display which makes everything looks crisp and vivid. It has 512 MB of RAM, 5 megapixel camera with LED flash and it runs on top of Android 2.1. HD2 on the other hand has a massive 4.3’’ capacitive display, 448 MB RAM, 5 megapixel camera with Dual-LED flash and it runs on Windows Mobile 6.5 with HTC Sense experience. Build quality of both the devices is top notch. I have also compared both devices on hardware grounds with iPhone 3GS. Thickness wise, HD2 was the thinner of the two followed by Nexus One and iPhone 3GS.
Here is a two-part video which shows the unboxing and hardware tour of the said devices.



Friday, January 22, 2010

Windows 7 way hotter than Vista off the line, now more popular than all OS X versions

By Darren Murph 

We learned back in November that Windows 7 was having a much (much!) better first few days in retail than Vista did when it launched, but now that the system has had a full quarter and change to make an impression, it looks as if that growth isn't slowing down. According to new figures from Net Application, Win7 is achieving a higher level of market penetration in a faster amount of time than Vista did; after a month, Vista was stuck at 0.93 percent, while Win7 nailed the 4 percent mark. After two months, Win7 jumped to 5.71 percent, while Vista was barely over 2 percent after the same amount of time. 'Course, the newest version of Windows had a holiday season to help it out right from the get-go, but there's still no denying that people are flocking to the system even now. What's most interesting, however, is that the overall market share of Windows 7 alone has now surpassed all OS X versions that are being tracked (10.4, 10.5 and 10.6), so put that in your pipe and smoke it. Smoke it long and hard.

 

PS: I love my WINDOWS 7

Here's what I want in my next phone

Entelligence is a column by technology strategist and author Michael Gartenberg, a man whose desire for a delicious cup of coffee and a quality New York bagel is dwarfed only by his passion for tech. In these articles, he'll explore where our industry is and where it's going -- on both micro and macro levels -- with the unique wit and insight only he can provide.

By my last count, I regularly carry as many as five different devices in my bag, with lots of overlapping functions. But I seldom want to carry more than two, and one of those is always going to be a phone. As good as today's phones are, however, I'm still left wanting. I use of a lot of different phones in the course of my work and while the perfect device still doesn't exist for me, we're getting very close. Here's what I'd like to see in my next phone -- and I'd like it this year, please.

First, the table stakes. It's got have a great voice capability -- I want to make crystal clear calls and never drop them. It's also go to have perfect contact and calendar features, a modern web browser, and an email client optimized for both Exchange and Gmail. Of course, a robust set of third party applications are a must, including a good RSS reader that syncs to Google Reader and a great version of Tetris.

Second, I'd like my phone to be somewhat agnostic toward the rest of the services I use in my life. Increasingly, vendors are tying devices to ecosystems and creating a non-substitutable infrastructure that makes it hard for users to switch devices or services. Android phones for the most part are tied to Google services -- which is great, unless you happen to use Exchange. Then you'd better hope your manufacturer has added some support on their own. The iPhone supports Gmail, but only as an IMAP client, and forget a native app for Google Voice. Windows Mobile devices are excellent Exchange clients, but forget syncing your music directly to iTunes. While some of these limitations can be overcome with party applications and services, I'd like my next device to simply support the combination of services and tools I want to use. I can switch back and forth between services on my computer with no penalty: I log into Gmail in the morning and use Exchange in the afternoon. I chat on AIM and then switch over to Skype. Why can't I do the same on my phone? I use a diverse set of tools and services on my desktop, and I'd like that flexibility on my next phone.

Finally, my next phone will be small. I want it to be with me always, have great battery life and get me through two very hard days of use. Ideally it will support multiple Bluetooth profiles so I can easily link into my car's handfree system, connect external keyboards, and tether it to my PC. While I'm at it, I'd like the ability to run applications in the background -- I'm not happy with the current state of any device in this regard. Like my PC, I want to decide which apps to run, when they're running and have an easy method to quit the ones I don't want taking up memory. Almost every phone on the market today fails in this capacity to some degree or another.

To call today's phones "phones" is a polite euphemism. They're hardly phones; they're PCs that fit in our pockets. That's a fine step along the road, but I don't really want a PC in my pocket -- I'd like something more. Today's mobile devices and platforms are great, but none of them will meet the needs of users tomorrow. That's why this year's going to be such a major mobile inflection point. I'm looking to see who might bring me the next phone I really want to use -- it might be quite a surprise.

To call today's phones 'phones' is a polite euphemism. They're hardly phones; they're PCs that fit in our pockets.

Michael Gartenberg is vice president of strategy and analysis at Interpret, LLC. His weblog can be found at gartenblog.net. Contact him at gartenberg AT gmail DOT com. Views expressed here are his own.
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone on Tigo Ghana Network

Thursday, January 21, 2010

20 things to learn about Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Tarantino strides into the room, grins, flashes the peace sign, sits down and starts talking. And doesn't stop for the next two hours. The subject of the latest Alfred Dunhill BAFTA A Life in Pictures, everyone's favourite obscure film fanatic and pop-culture auteur is in a terrific mood. This is a chance not only to listen to one of the greatest film-makers of the past two decades talk movies . . .

1. As is well documented, the 22-year-old Tarantino worked in a video shop, Manhattan Beach Video Archives. (It had a great classics section.) He refutes the accusation that this was his version of film school - he got the job because of the expert knowledge of film he had in the first place.

2. Tarantino originally wanted to be a producer rather than a writer because he couldn't type.

3. When he watched Kevin Smith's Clerks he was reminded of his own early film-making experiments, saying, "I've got something like that in my garage".

4. He has still never seen Natural Born Killers. He was horrified with Oliver Stone's modifications to the script. (Now all his work comes with a "final draft" stamp.) He kept a story credit for "coming up with the names Mickey and Mallory". He has since made up with Oliver Stone over drinks.

5. Like most writers, Tarantino incorporates autobiographical elements into his scripts. So the reason John Travolta's Vincent talks about mayonnaise on chips is because Tarantino wrote the scene when he was living in Amsterdam. (He took the opportunity to live abroad after getting his first big paycheck for Reservoir Dogs.)

6. One of Tarantino's greatest accomplishments is bringing international attention to cult directors he loves - such as Chungking Express by Wong Kar Wei, which was distributed through his Rolling Thunder production company.

7. Using a scene between Pam Grier and Samuel L Jackson from Jackie Brown as an example, he considers his dialogue to be a combination of "poetry, stand-up comedy and hip-hop". He finds it surprisingly easy to write.

8. Although he has subsequently found out that there was a squad of Jewish resistance fighters shortly after World War II, Tarantino didn't base the Basterds on even the smallest factual detail. He's particularly proud that in a genre that prides itself on "based on a true story", Inglourious is 100 per cent a work of fiction.

9. Tarantino was all set to play Mr Pink in Reservoir Dogs. He wanted the role, but Harvey Keitel and he agreed that he should audition for it. In Keitel's eyes, Tarantino delivered the best performance - but then the director realised that by appearing in his film he might compromise it, even in the slightest way. The role went to Steve Buscemi.

10. Tarantino is cautiously optimistic about the future of the film industry. "If you get one masterpiece a year, you can't really ask for more. That's pretty good." He is trying to resist becoming "the old guy in the block".

11. Having studied the work of Elmore Leonard, Tarantino enjoys exploring works of a particular genre and then making them more interesting by introducing realistic elements. It's a strange combination of realism and fantasy. Tarantino loves bringing what he describes as his "Basquiat touch" to genre cinema.

12. He can count the number of great scriptwriters working in Hollywood on eight fingers.

13. After Basterds, it's the first time his films have been considered a body of work: "I have an oeuvre." He hopes that in the future anyone could select any work from his filmography and find they are all "from the same place". (He used the example of how he got into the work of Howard Hawks via His Girl Friday.)

14. He loves manipulating an audience's emotions: "Your feelings are my orchestra."

15. When interviewer Francine Stock suggested that Uma Thurman as the Bride suffered "more than any onscreen character in history", Tarantino pointed out that Jesus in The Passion Of The Christ went through a lot.

16. When he first starting writing Basterds, Tarantino admits to suffering from "epic-itus" where he started to question whether the medium of cinema was big enough to hold his vision. It turned out it was.

17. Sometimes people get cast because of how nice they are. The woman dangling from the front of Rosario Dawson's car in 60 per cent of Death Proof is Zoe Bell, who charmed Tarantino as a stuntwoman for Uma Thurman in Kill Bill.

18. Tarantino's favourite films of last year include Funny People, the film Adam Sandler turned down Inglourious Basterds for.

19.  He describes the role of Hans Landa as "the best role ever written". But only found Christopher Waltz on the last day of auditions.

20. "In genre cinema violence is the bill of fare." Get used to it.

Quentin Tarantino was speaking at Alfred Dunhill BAFTA A Life In Pictures. dunhill.com; bafta.org

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

How to Disappear from Facebook and Twitter

Need to disappear from Facebook or Twitter? Now you can scrub yourself from the Internet with Web 2.0 Suicide Machine, a nifty service that purges your online presence from these all-consuming social networks. Since its Dec. 19 launch, Suicide Machine has assisted more than 1,000 virtual deaths, severing more than 80,500 friendships on Facebook and removing some 276,000 tweets from Twitter.

Once you hand over your log-in details and click Commit, the program will methodically delete your info — Twitter tweets, MySpace contacts, Facebook friends, LinkedIn connections — much like users could do manually. What remains is a brittle cyberskeleton: a profile with no data. Users seem to love it. Testimonials range from joyous farewells ("Goodbye, cruel world!") to good-riddance denouements ("Thank you, microblogging. You are, in fact, totally useless"). Suicide Machine is so popular that thousands of people are waiting their turn for their own cyberoffing. "Our server is so busy handling the requests," says Suicide Machine co-creator Walter Langelaar. (See the 50 best websites of 2009.)

But be warned: As in life, resurrection is impossible. Going through the process means that your Web doppelgänger will croak for good. When it does, you'll receive a cybermemorial on the site. RIP, 2.0. We'll miss you.

What appeals to many of the site's boosters is the simplicity of the exit. When trying to close an online account, users are often asked to fill out a questionnaire. More important, their information and connections aren't then erased; they're just unpublished. By deleting all your data, Suicide Machine says, your private information is snuffed out on website servers. (See the top 10 Facebook stories of 2009.)

Not everyone thinks the proposition is so cool. The uptick in social suicides has put Facebook in a tizzy. In an e-mail to Suicide Machine's founders — Langelaar, 32; Gordan Savicic, 30; and Danya Vasiliev, 31 — Facebook demanded that they "cease this activity immediately," citing a violation of users' privacy. But the founders disagree, saying users voluntarily hand over their log-in details. Though Facebook blocked Suicide Machine from accessing its site earlier this month, Suicide Machine's creators, and the suicides, are continuing. "Compared to the more than 350 million users [on Facebook], we think deleting a few hundred is not very impressive," says Langelaar. "But they picked up on it as a potential threat." LinkedIn, MySpace and Twitter have not yet publicly responded.

Is Technology Messing Up Your Love Life?

Are you using the internet to find out about your date before you even meet? Do you over-text? Did you 'friend' a potential date too quickly? How to navigate your love life given the tech-heavy reality of dating in 2010.

By Dave Singleton

Is Internet technology messing up your love life?/Is Internet technology messing up your love life?

Is technology complicating your love life, leaving you just one click away from a romantic meltdown?
If so, you are not alone.
The truth is that some aspects of dating are changing as often as updates for the iPhone. Warp-speed transformations, especially in the ways we communicate, make dating today easier in some ways and more complicated in others.
It also makes new technology the Pandora’s box of modern romance. Once you start texting, Internet stalking, and friending dates on Facebook, you’ve opened the box – and there’s no turning back.
We are supposed to manage technology; it’s not supposed to manage us. But it seems like not everyone has gotten the memo, or text message, about this.

It’s clear that three relatively recent technological trends, in particular – text messaging, searching online for information about your dates, and compulsive use of social networking sites – are truly wreaking havoc on love lives. These three remind me of the three witches in Macbeth, described as “lurking like dark thoughts and unconscious temptations to evil.” So before you make your next dating move, don’t let temptation get the upper hand. Step away from your computer and PDA and consciously rethink your approach to these three dating challenges.

Text Messaging: When It’s Acceptable, When It’s Not
Text messages are like other forms of impersonal communication, but worse. At least with email you can more fully express yourself. You aren’t stuck with a limited palette of emoticons, acronyms and just a few, probably misspelled words. But make no mistake: texts and emails are devoid of irony, tone, humor or any of the key essential ingredients of communication. The BlackBerry, Treo and iPhone look sleek and smart, but it’s amazing how many dumbed-down, modern-day applications they’ve spawned.
Sure, text messaging has helpful uses: “What time does the party start?” or “I’m running 15 minutes late.” For many, it’s a fun way to flirt, and if your flirting leads to a hookup or a follow-up, it can be a better – shorter, thus safer – communication tool than a lengthy email or an impulsive phone call.
But does dating these days mean U R A SLV 2 TXT? According to dating coach David Wygant, “For those of you who use text messaging as a form of communication with someone you’re dating, text messaging is the most abused and misinterpreted form of communication out there.”

Texts are a terrible way to convey bad news. Don’t share harsh information, cancel a plan or be rude via a text message. If there’s an emotionally charged issue you want to discuss, do it face-to-face or at least by telephone.
Are we forgetting that nothing replaces in-person interaction? Text messages, emails and IMs have their place, but nothing replaces eye contact, hearing each other’s voice and physical, nonverbal communication. Experts say that 80 percent of all effective communication is nonverbal, so where does that leave text messaging? At the bottom.
While you can’t stop the texting craze, can you train your dates that you won’t respond to every text? If your date is dependent on text messaging and you aren’t, make your stance clear right away. Tell your dates up front that they shouldn’t assume you got a text message unless you text or call them back.

Don’t Friend Your Dates Too Soon
Prolific social networkers have different definitions of the term friend, ranging from lifelong pals to acquaintances they met at a party last night. But let’s be clear that dates belong in a special “handle with care” category.
If you friend a date early on, you risk learning too much too soon. Your goal should be to spend time together without your entire social networks lurking over your shoulders.
It’s natural to want to know more about someone you like, but learning about a love interest through messages from random people practically begs your imagination to run wild. Is he or she seeing any of the hotties who post wall comments? What’s he doing on Tuesday night? How does she feel about the latest news? Comments on a person’s wall will be out of context. You’ll make unfounded assumptions. Your curiosity will be piqued but unsatisfied. Resentment will build when you can’t express your feelings because, of course, someone else’s Facebook life is none of your business — at least not yet.

Stop Stalking Your Date as if You Were a Private Detective on a Case
OK, I’ll admit that stalking is a too-harsh term. So let’s call it “stalking lite.” What I’m talking about is a romantic fixation that you act on to your dating detriment.
Snooping around online is just too easy, isn’t it? All you have to do is type your date’s name in the search box and see what comes up. But what starts out as an incredibly easy way to find out information about Mr. or Ms. Right can turn quickly into an investigation gone wrong. Conveying the results of your search to your date over a romantic bottle of champagne will take the fizz out of your evening faster than a popping cork. Keeping what you’ve learned to yourself makes you harbor a secret. Don’t you agree that neither are very attractive options?

You don’t want to end up with what I call “Search Engine Remorse,” so stop the Nancy Drew-style sleuthing and leave the discoveries to those shared – in the right setting, over a normal progression of time – during dinner for two.

Monday, January 18, 2010

2010 Complete Lists of Winners: See who won at this year’s Golden Globes

Winners at the 67th annual Golden Globe Awards:

MOTION PICTURES

—Picture, Drama: "Avatar."

—Picture, Musical or Comedy: "The Hangover."

—Actor, Drama: Jeff Bridges, "Crazy Heart."

—Actress, Drama: Sandra Bullock, "The Blind Side."

—Director: James Cameron, "Avatar."

—Actor, Musical or Comedy: Robert Downey Jr., "Sherlock Holmes."

—Actress, Musical or Comedy: Meryl Streep, "Julie & Julia."

—Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, "Inglourious Basterds."

—Supporting Actress: Mo'Nique, "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire."

—Foreign Language: "The White Ribbon."

—Animated Film: "Up."

—Screenplay: Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner, "Up in the Air."

—Original Score: Michael Giacchino, "Up."

—Original Song: "The Weary Kind (Theme from 'Crazy Heart')" (written by Ryan Bingham, T Bone Burnett); "Crazy Heart."

TELEVISION:

—Series, Drama: "Mad Men," AMC.

—Actor, Drama: Michael C. Hall, "Dexter."

—Actress, Drama: Julianna Margulies, "The Good Wife."

—Series, Musical or Comedy: "Glee," Fox.

—Actor, Musical or Comedy: Alec Baldwin, "30 Rock."

—Actress, Musical or Comedy: Toni Collette, "United States of Tara."

—Miniseries or Movie: "Grey Gardens," HBO.

—Actress, Miniseries or Movie: Drew Barrymore, "Grey Gardens."

—Actor, Miniseries or Movie: Kevin Bacon, "Taking Chance."

—Supporting Actress, Series, Miniseries or Movie: Chloe Sevigny, "Big Love,"

—Supporting Actor, Series, Miniseries or Movie: John Lithgow, "Dexter."

PREVIOUSLY ANNOUNCED

Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award: Martin Scorsese.

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Honda FCX Clarity - Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle

The Zero-Emissions Electric Vehicle of the Future. A Reality Today.

Electric Power

  • Zero emissions
  • Domestic fuel
  • Helps slow increase in greenhouse gases

Performance

  • Fun to drive
  • Smooth and powerful electric motor
  • Groundbreaking new fuel cell stack

Safety

  • Reinforced unit-body structure
  • Vehicle Stability Assist™ (VSA®)
  • Collision Mitigation Braking System™ (CMBS™)

Awards, Accolades and Ratings

Honda FCX Clarity named 2009 World Green Car

FCX Clarity: There should be a lot more of them on the market, and the sooner the better

Honda recently handed the keys to an FCX Clarity Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle to 2010 Canadian Olympic hockey team captain, Scott Niedermayer at the Honda Center in Anaheim. Niedermayer, also a team captain for the Anaheim Ducks National Hockey League team, is a leader on and off the ice by promoting an environmentally responsible lifestyle. See photos.

The Honda FCX Clarity FCEV was named World Green Car at the 2009 New York International Auto Show. This prestigious award recognizes Honda’s commitment to environmental leadership in the area of alternative-fuel vehicles. Learn more about the award.
More FCX Clarity Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle(s) are now in the hands of Southern California drivers. Meet our customers. Additional customers will be selected for FCX Clarity FCEV leases in the future, so keep checking back for more customer updates.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Use Wi-Fi signal to charge your BlackBerry or Cell Phone

If you Google for Airnergy right now you will get some 180,000 hits, of which nearly 60'000 posts were done in the last 24 hours. YouTube video coverage is all over. Something seems to be a hidden highlight of this year's CES?! Tiny, but obviously great. So, what is it all about? Spend $40 this summer to get a lifetime free re-charging of any micro-USB device you own.

Simply ensure, that you are in a "Wi-Fi - poisoned" area. RCA Airnergy Charger uses the signal from any Wi-Fi router to convert it into useful energy e.g. for your BlackBerry. I'm not that much a techno guy to fully understand how it works, but it has to be EM driven somehow.

Rumours tell, that RCA is heavily working on even integrating this fancy technology away from their portable dongle directly into the design of cellphone batteries themselves. Wow, this is intriguing, isn't it!!

Monday, January 11, 2010

Google "Nexus 2" will rival Blackberry

Less than a week into the release of its Nexus One superphone, Google is already outlining plans for the 'Nexus Two,' which it states will be aimed at enterprise customers.

Google executive Andy Rubin discussed the company's plans for the next version of its smartphone at an event hosted by the Wall Street Journal. According to PC Pro, the successor to the Nexus One will be aimed at enterprise users and may even feature a physical keyboard rather than the virtual keyboard of the current version.

Whereas the Nexus One is commonly viewed as a direct challenge to Apple's iPhone, it seems that the Nexus Two is set to enter the enterprise smartphone market, providing competition to BlackBerry maker RIM. However, the company has not yet revealed any further details on the phone's functionality, hardware or operating system.

It seems likely that any successors to Google's Nexus One will be exclusively available from Google's dedicated web store, at least initially. The company has generated much discussion over this unusual selling strategy, which currently restricts sales of the Nexus One to Google's newly set up mobile store. Customers can choose between versions with Android installed and unlocked phones.

The Nexus One is a new step for Google into the smartphone market, however the Mountain View giant could already be facing a legal battle over use of the Nexus One name, after the family of the late sci-fi author Philip K Dick claimed that the name was taken from Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, later filmed as Blade Runner.

# end
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone on Tigo Ghana Network

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Google Nexus One vs Apple iPhone 3GS

Google has taken the fate of its Android smartphone platform into its own hands by promoting and directly marketing HTC's latest new Android phone under its own brand. How does the new "superphone" stack up to last summer's iPhone 3GS?
AppleInsider has presented a series of articles on how Android stacks up against Apple's iPhone OS as a platform in general terms. In this article, we'll consider the hardware specifics of the latest offering from Google's partner.

Meet your maker
While the tech press likes to say Google designed the Nexus One "with HTC," Google executives clearly gave all the credit to HTC at its introduction, saying "It’s inaccurate to say Google designed the phone. Peter [Chou] and his team [at HTC] built and designed the phone. Google is just marketing and selling the phone."
The phone is nearly identical to what HTC itself sells under the name Bravo in Europe, apart from the placement of its buttons. Google's impact on the Nexus One's specs is far less significant than even Microsoft's original Zune, which while being based on the Toshiba Gigabeat, was at least given a design update and noticeably different software that rendered it incompatible with other PlaysforSure MP3 players. In contrast, the Nexus One is very clearly a Google-branded HTC phone, and there are no intentional, artificial compatibility barriers with other Android platform devices.
HTC has a history of building higher-end PDA-style phones, often with physical keyboards, large screens, and envelope pushing hardware features. Most of its phones have been designed to run Microsoft's Windows Mobile, and are therefore targeted at that platform's core market of IT staff and gadget enthusiasts. HTC has served as Microsoft's primary licensee, building 80% of the Windows Mobile phones to reach the market (although many of these were sold under different brand names, just as Google is now doing with the Nexus One).
The company also built previous generations of PDA-style phones sold by Palm, prior to the debut of the new WebOS-based Pre. But HTC's history as the leading maker of Windows Mobile phones is what positioned it to be the first major manufacture to launch an Android phone, because Google targeted its relatively new Android operating system at hardware reference designs running Windows Mobile, in much the same way that popular desktop distributions of Linux are geared to run on Microsoft's reference design for Windows PCs.

Magic, Dream, Hero, Passion
Google launched Android 1.0 in October 2008 with HTC's Dream (sold as the T-Mobile G1), then followed up with HTC's second generation Magic (the T-Mobile myTouch) last summer, and then the HTC Hero (also sold with slight modifications as the Verizon Droid Eris) last fall. It's therefore nothing out of the ordinary that the newly released Nexus One running Android 2.1 is also being sold under other HTC names in other markets.

iPhone 3GS vs Nexus One

Unike earlier HTC models, the new Nexus One does not pair the stock Android OS with HTC's "Sense UI," a user interface theme HTC added to the stock Android both to differentiate its offerings and to solve some rough edges in the Android interface, such as the look of its virtual keyboard. HTC also applies Sense to its Windows Mobile phones which makes HTC's Android phones look and feel more similar to the company's other products than to those of other Android makers, including Motorola's Verizon Droid and the upcoming Sony Ericsson Xperia X10.
Overall, this fractionalization has resulted in making the Android platform less similar to commodity Windows PCs and more like PlaysForSure devices in terms of being unique to their manufacturer rather than offering a largely identical experience between vendors. With Android 2.1 however, Google seems to be signaling the intention to fold in many of HTC's Sense improvements into the standard OS, which should help streamline the platform at the expense of HTC's differentiation.

The Android balancing act
It remains to be seen whether Google will continue to work to neutralize the differentiation efforts of its partners in order to strengthen the Android brand, or whether it will continue to encourage vendors to create their own look and feel independently, as Motorola did with Blur and Sony Ericsson is expected to do with its upcoming phone.
On the other hand, it is in HTC's interests to create reasons for customers to pick its phones over those of other competitors. The company already advertises its Android and Windows Mobile devices under the same ad campaign, direction attention to its own brand rather than to either licensed operating system. Further, at CES the company unveiled a new initiative to release a series of lower-end smartphones based on BREW, Qualcomm's proprietary alternative to Java.
That indicates that despite its shift from Windows Mobile, HTC isn't betting its future on Android. Additionally, it shows that Android itself doesn't do enough to allow phone makers to hit low price points. Successful Android phones require a fast processor and significant RAM and other system resources to be taken seriously.
Finding one operating system to span from the bargain bin to the high end has similarly been a challenge for Nokia, which uses its own simple Nokia OS, the more sophisticated Symbian, a full distro of Maemo Linux in its Internet Tablets, and Windows on its netbook. Samsung has also announced plans to juggle Windows Mobile, Android, and its own Bada platform. Most other makers also have a variety of operating systems, leaving Apple, RIM, and Palm unique in pushing one single OS.
Motorola has announced an intention do to this with Android, but is already facing a rather direct blow from Google and its new branding partnership with HTC. On the other side, Google is also planning to add its new Chrome OS into the mix as a way to enter the significantly different netbook market, which will splinter efforts by its current licensees who already have Android netbooks and tablets under development.
The company has also announced a clear intention to turn its hardware partners into commodity manufacturers, leaving Google with control of all the value across their products, much as Microsoft did to PC makers in the 90s. This is all a precarious balancing act challenge Apple doesn't face.

Android super-Hero
Unlike most of its Windows Mobile phones, which nearly always supply a physical keyboard, HTC's Nexus One builds upon the previous Hero/Droid Eris form factor to deliver something that's closer to the iPhone, but which still supplies a trackball pointer rather than relying on ubiquitous multitouch for navigation. The result is a something of a middle ground between the gadgety PC experience of Windows Mobile and the slick and refined appliance experience Apple provides.
In many ways, the Nexus One is HTC's answer to the Motorola Verizon Droid, which stole the spotlight this winter as Google focused on it and left HTC's Hero (Verizon Droid Eris) to serve as a runner up to be given away for free with Droid purchases. HTC's Hero was also relegated to running an older version of the Android OS, as Google launched Android 2.0 on the Droid exclusively.
As with the Droid, the Nexus One's hybrid design of being an iPhone-like touchscreen but still sporting a Windows Mobile-like array of touch sensitive buttons and a physical trackball results in the problem of making it easy to inadvertently fall back to the home screen while attempting to type. "we found ourselves consistently accidentally tapping them while composing an email or text message," Engadget complained. That review also said the unit's "[trackball] placement feels a bit awkward here, and there's literally nothing in the OS that requires it." In contrast, the iPhone 3GS uses a recessed home button that is difficult to hit accidentally.
The Nexus One now brings the Android 2.x platform to HTC's product lineup, although existing Hero/Droid Eris users will have to wait as long as this summer before they can obtain the latest update from their mobile provider. Apple regularly releases updates that all iPhone users can install as soon as they become available. Again, the layers of differentiation that Android partners are adding (like HTC's Sense, Motorola's Blur, and support for unique hardware) tend to complicate and slow the propagation of Android updates for users.

New Features
The Nexus One carries forward the basic iPhone-like design of the earlier Magic and Hero, adding a suite of new features such as a fast new processor, noise canceling audio, a better camera supporting 720p HD capture and playback initial reviewers have noted that HTC's camera works much better than the Droid's, which was plagued by focusing issues), a higher resolution screen, and a new OLED display like the Zune HD.
The display resolution of the Nexus One now almost matches the Droid, although it does so using an OLED screen. This may be why it uses a 480x800 resolution rather than the Droid's 480x854, adding some extra complication for Android developers who now have three different popular resolutions to account for on the platform (earlier models use the same 320x480 resolution of the iPhone).
As we noted in regard to the Zune HD, OLED technology results in a screen that promises to save power and which looks exceptional in low light. However, reviewers have actually reported that, like the Zune HD, the Nexus One's screen is terrible to the point of unusable in bright light, with Engadget writing, "Oh, and using this thing in daylight? Forget about it. Like most screens of this type, the Nexus One is a nightmare to see with any kind of bright light around, and snapping photos with it on a sunny day was like taking shots with your eyes closed."
At the same time, Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, who has been using the phone for weeks, complained that he "found battery life to be woefully brief," and that users should "be prepared to keep this phone near a charger at all times," regardless of its rated battery life and the energy saving potential of its new display.

Google's Zune
In addition to OLED, the Nexus One also shares other engineering choices with the Zune. Unlike the iPhone and the iPods before it, which are all designed to power down the screen as quickly as possible the moment you stop interacting with it, the Nexus One debuts Zune-like flashy effects that assume you'll be staring at the screen even while listening to music. These include new interactive graphic background effects and music visualizers which require the screen to be on in order to notice them, an engineering decision that, like Microsoft's Zune, indicates more interest in delivering Vista-like sizzle than the practical, functional utility that Apple trends toward.
For Apple's products, anything that distracts from core features or doesn't add tangible value is a potential casualty. The company canned the latent audio recording features on the first iPods and initially delivered a simple black and white screen. The iPhone's user interface is rich with animation effects, but they are all targeted at enhancing its navigation and overall feel, not to decorate the screen with superfluous candy.
There are also more practical features the Nexus One holds over last summer's iPhone 3GS: the camera has an LED flash, which is handy when taking close ups in dim lighting; the camera also has a higher rated resolution, but that isn't necessarily an improvement when you're using a tiny CCD chip, as packing more pixels into a tiny sensor can result in more grain noise and greater file sizes without actually improving the shots you can take. The noise cancellation feature sound promising and valuable, and there's also a novel speech recognition feature designed to serve as an alternative to the virtual keyboard. Engadget called it "marginally successful."
The phone is also faster; it's rated to be significantly faster than the Droid, but only slightly faster then the iPhone 3GS when loading web pages. In JavaScript rendering, the iPhone 3GS actually came out ahead in some tests. One would expect that the very latest Android phone using the most advanced ARM processor available would perform significantly better than last summer's iPhone 3GS and just narrowly better than the Droid.
This indicates that Apple's software provides significant performance optimization, something that last year's Palm Pre also demonstrated. That model used the same chip Apple put in the iPhone 3GS, but failed to achieve the same performance. This does not bode well for competitors once Apple debuts its own optimized ARM cores under development within the company's PA Semi subsidiary.

iPhone 3GS vs Nexus One

Missing Features
Despite being almost a year ahead of the iPhone 3GS in an industry where performance and capacity can often double on an annual basis, the Nexus One doesn't do a lot of things Apple's phone did last year. Like the Droid, the Nexus One doesn't do hardware encryption, meaning that most Microsoft Exchange shops will refuse to support either model (unless you can convince your company to downgrade its default security policy). The iPhone 3GS does support Exchange's default policy settings, which require device encryption.
The Android OS also can't handle moving purchased software titles from Android Market into the devices' Flash RAM storage (which on HTC and Motorola devices, like other phones developed for Windows Mobile, is provided primarily on removable SD RAM cards). This results in a significant limitation for developers and for users who want to run sophisticated mobile apps such as games. Google as been aware of this issue for a long time, but only commented that it has plans to address it at some point in the future.
Until that happens, growth of the Android Market will be artificially handicapped as Apple's App Store juggernaut further establishes itself as the best way for developers to make money and for users to find the latest, richest, and most regularly updated games, serious applications, and software-integrated hardware peripherals. Speaking of which, the Nexus One doesn't have anything comparable to the iPhone's Dock Connector, which has given birth to an ecosystem of iPhone and iPod related peripherals. Instead, the Nexus One only provides a mini USB connector.
Microsoft copied Apple in creating its own hybrid connector supplying power, USB, audio, and video signals for the Zune, but also demonstrated how difficult it was to build momentum behind such a standard. Google, partnered with a variety of hardware competitors under Android, neither created a standard hardware connector for Android nor one for its own branded version of the HTC Passion/Bravo. There is a docking mechanism of some sort, but no details on when the dock will be made available and what capabilities it will have in the absence of a hybrid connector.
The iPhone 3GS also supplies a consistent multitouch user interface that is used throughout it bundled apps. Google has only added limited support for this in the Android OS, and apps that can make the most use of "pinch to zoom" type features don't consistently offer it to the user. That includes Google's own web browser, which has become a primary feature of smartphones. The Nexus One also lacks the iPhone 3GS' automatic focus, white balance, and exposure set by the user's touch.

The Network
It's often said that the biggest problem with the iPhone is its association with AT&T, at least in the US. That being the case, it's hard to see how the Nexus One improves upon things by either limiting users to an even less complete network on T-Mobile (which suffers from serious problems both due to its less penetrating higher frequency radio spectrum as well as its much smaller network, primarily concentrated in urban areas) or asking them to revert back to 2007 and forgo 3G service completely to use the phone unlocked on AT&T.
Google promises a Verizon version to follow, but hasn't said when, hinting only that it is likely around the same time Apple is expected to bring the iPhone to CDMA carriers using either a worldmode or separate CDMA chipset. The reason behind this vagueness is likely related to Google's efforts to balance its love between carriers and hardware partners. Users interested in the Nexus One but wanting a Verizon phone are directed to the Droid.
Of course, the iPhone is also limited to working on AT&T or in EDGE-only mode on T-Mobile (if users incur the risks involved with cracking the carrier lock). It remains to be seen whether Google can keep users satisfied with T-Mobile's network and avoid the same criticism Apple gets for partnering with AT&T. If it can, Apple may be more likely to offer a new version of the iPhone that works with both AT&T and T-Mobile's 3G networks.

Reception
When Apple debuted the iPhone 3GS last summer, it all but silenced any talk out the Palm Pre, which up to that point had stoked lots of enthusiastic anticipation. Observers immediately shifted their attention to other potential rivals to the iPhone, and Android began receiving much of that attention. The Hero and then the Droid took turns basking in the Android spotlight last winter, and have now been eclipsed by the Nexus One, with general consensus being that this model is the "Droid-killer."
At the same time, Apple has continued selling its iPhone 3GS, shifting focus only slightly to the complementary iPod touch. Now Apple is stoking hype surrounding its expected Tablet launch, while continuing to sell and promote the same iPhone model. This pattern of Apple conquering new territory with blockbuster releases that occur only once a year while rivals throw handfuls of new models under its tank treads appears to be continuing with Android.
Google appears to be purposely fractionalizing its brand by pitting itself against each of its hardware rivals while also assigning Android credibility to Verizon with the "Droid" brand, and associating "with Google" to anyone who agrees to put its apps on their phone. While the iPhone brand has remained globally famous for going on three years now, Google is making Android an umbrella term that doesn't necessarily mean anything really good or bad while its partners also pick a variety of model names that will only apply to specific markets and or providers.
But the point of a brand is to associate a name with a strong reputation and consistent level of quality. It's not clear how Nexus One will do that for Google, no matter how much success it can generate before Android's attention spotlight shifts to another model. Additionally, by launching the marginally new HTC model with the hubris of "superphone" attached to it, Google risks associating itself with an embarrassing failure that will impede its ability to grab legitimate attention in the future, another similarity it shares with Microsoft's Zune.

 

courtesy appleinsider