The Next Facebook: Scoop?

Imagine a social networking site geared specifically toward connecting college students with their on-campus academic and social communities. Sound familiar? Those are Facebook's roots -- before the site ballooned into a worldwide phenomenon with half a billion registered users. They're also the roots of Scoop, a forthcoming mobile social app.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt's personal venture capital investment vehicle, TomorrowVentures, has invested in the developers of Scoop, Trumpet Technologies, according to Venture Beat. (By the way, Trumpet Technologies has an awesome slogan: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." Its company mission is listed as "mobile local search," probably the most popular social network-related technology today.)
Trumpet Technologies put two college students in charge of developing the product: Nick Simmons and Michael Akilian. According to Simmons and Akilian, Scoop's ambition is to help people discover ad hoc campus events like impromptu basketball games and raging frat keggers. Simmons and Akilian want not only to list and promote events, they want to leverage users' social connections with a recommendation engine, actively engaging students in activities they'd enjoy.
"Imagine having a campus-wide conversation about what's going on. That information is not all in one place today," Simmons told Venture Beat.
The developers of Scoop realize they're cribbing from Facebook's playbook, and plan to even use that site to spread word about Scoop. "The existence of Facebook and its penetration through these campuses will be a great aid to distribution," Akilian said.
What's most interesting about Scoop is its distribution model. Though Scoop does have a Web site, it's uncertain as to how the service will use it, or if Scoop's main focus will be on a mobile app. Venture Beat notes that "Simmons says the choice of initial platform may change, at some point during the upcoming school year, at selected campuses."
Smartphone adoption has seen a dramatic rise over the past few years. According to the latest Nielsen data, smartphones have taken 25 percent of the U.S. mobile market in Q1 2010, up from 23 percent in the last quarter. By the end of 2011, Nielsen predicts smartphones to overtake feature phones in the U.S. market. Leveraging the popularity of smartphones and mobile apps (also a booming pastime) is a savvy business strategy, as mobile communication is quickly becoming the wave of the future.
Quiet startups such as Scoop and Diaspora are sneaking onto the social scene with philosophy disparate from the Big Dogs: if they can attract people who are tired of privacy scuffles and commercialization, perhaps there is a chance of reigniting the Internet revolution Facebook once personified and breathe new life into social networking.

Social media can rule your life

Being perpetually connected through social media can increase stress, weaken personal relationships, and even cause sleep loss, according to a U.S. university.
After imposing a week-long blackout in the use of Facebook, Twitter, instant messaging and other media, Harrisburg University of Science and Technology in central Pennsylvania found that the pervasive technology had hidden pitfalls.
"Students realized that social media, especially Facebook and instant messaging, if not managed properly, can take over their lives," said Eric Darr, the college provost.
The 800-student college called for the ban to see how the technology affects the lives of students and faculty.
Most students complied with the week-long experiment earlier this month and some discovered that the technology could rule their lives.
Darr cited one student who felt compelled to check Facebook 21 hours a day and blocked posts between 2 and 5 in the morning to get some sleep.
"It sounds like an addiction to me," said Darr, who initiated the blackout, which was implemented by blocking social media access to the college's IP address.
Darr acknowledged that students or faculty who felt forced to feed their social media addiction could do so via smartphones, but he said most complied, and some were pleasantly surprised by what they found.
"The majority of students behaved much like smokers who sneak cigarettes after class," he said. "They would sneak off to check things on their smart phones."
But some discovered that they were less stressed because they were not able to constantly check their friends' Facebook status and found more time to do other things.
Other students found themselves more likely to have face-to-face meetings with students or faculty who normally communicate exclusively by social media.
Student Amanda Zuck said she isn't a heavy user of Facebook but was "a little irritated" at first by being unable to use the site.
Zuck wrote in an email that she didn't see much advantage in the project for herself but she added that it had probably helped a friend whom she said is addicted to Facebook.
"She decided to call it quits for a few weeks while she catches up on school, and I think this blackout helped her stick with it," Zuck wrote.
The project allowed all members of the college community to reflect on how social media tools affect their lives.

Dell shows off new 7-inch tablet

Dell Inc Chief Executive Michael Dell showed off a new seven-inch tablet and said the computer maker is on track to bring in more than $60 billion in revenue this year.
Dell appeared on stage at the Oracle OpenWorld conference in San Francisco on Wednesday with the new tablet, which appeared to run on Google's Android software. But he declined to provide any details about the device.
The company released the Streak, a five-inch tablet, last month. Dell said the Streak, which is currently only available through the company's online store, will be available at Best Buy stores next month.
Dell also said the company's revenue has grown about 20 percent over the past two quarters, and "it looks like we'll probably do that again this quarter as well."
Analysts expect Dell to report revenue of $15.8 billion in its fiscal third quarter, which ends in October, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. That would be 22 percent higher than a year ago.
Wall Street expects Dell to post revenue of $62.4 billion for the current fiscal year, which ends in January.
TABLET PUSH
Dell executives have previously said the company planned to launch tablets in larger screen sizes.
The Streak, which runs on Android and doubles as a smartphone, costs $549.99, or $299.99 with a two-year contract from AT&T.
Dell is the world's No. 2 PC maker, according to industry tracker IDC, but has been expanding its product portfolio, with an emphasis on mobile devices. Apple's iPad has set the standard for tablet computers.
A slew of tablets has hit the market or is expected to in the coming months, including offerings from Samsung, Hewlett-Packard and Toshiba.
BMO Capital Markets expects tablet sales to top 40 million units in 2011 and hurt notebook and netbook sales.
Dell's shares fell 1.8 percent to close at $12.38 on the Nasdaq.

BlackBerry PlayBook Professional Tablet, BlackBerry PlayBook Announced

Research In Motion (RIM) has officially unveiled its professional grade tablet, the BlackBerry PlayBook. BlackBerry PlayBook is powered by 1GHz dual-core ARM Cortex A9 processor and runs on Blackberry Tablet OS that is based on the QNX Neutrino microkernel architecture.

BlackBerry PlayBook tablet features a 7 inch capacitive touchscreen LCD display with 1024 x 600 pixels resolutions (WSVGA), full multitouch support, dual HD camera 3 megapixel front facing and 5 megapixel rear, 1080p HD video recording and 1 GB RAM.

BlackBerry PlayBook also supports Adobe Flash Player 10.1, WebKit/HTML-5, Adobe Mobile AIR, Java and features audio player, video player, HDMI out, Wi-Fi 802.11n, and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR. It measures 130 x 193 x 10 mm and weighs 400 grams. RIM will also offer 3G and 4G models in the future.

Blackberry PlayBook Price

The Blackberry PlayBook will be available in the United States in early 2011 and globally it will launch in Q2 2011. Blackberry PlayBook price is still to be revealed.

Nokia C3-01 Price, Nokia C3-01 Touch and Type Price in India

Nokia is all set to launch Nokia C3-01 touch and type phone in India. Nokia C3-01 touch and type runs Symbian Series 40 operating system. Nokia C3-01 has both the touchscreen and 12 button phone keypad.

Nokia C3-01 touch and type features a 2.4 inch touchscreen display with a resolution of 240x 320 pixels, 5 MP camera, 30MB internal memory and 32GB expandable memory card slot, music player, FM radio, video player and 3.5mm audio jack.

Nokia C3-01 touch and type also features 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0 ADP connectivity, Adobe FlashLite support, and IM messaging, support to major social networking application like Facebook, Twitter and access to Nokia’s Ovi Store for third-party applications. The main disadvantage of the phone is that it does not has GPS.

Nokia C3-01 Price

Nokia C3-01 touch and type is expected to be available in India by mid-October 2010 at price of Rs. 9000.

HP TouchSmart310 PC introduced to the masses

 

Touchscreens have gotten more and more popular by the day, and we are not surprised at all. The Apple iPhone really kicked things off where multitouch is concerned, and never had the world really considered touchscreens as a mode of input on a mass scale prior to Apple showing the way that it is not only possible, but perhaps, better than a QWERTY keyboard. The HP TouchSmart310 PC, being the latest model from the world’s largest computer manufacturer, will naturally come pre-loaded with the most advanced version of the company’s exclusive TouchSmart software to date. It not only offers a basic computing solution to homes, it will also double up as an anchor of one’s digital lifestyle. The HP TouchSmart310 PC will also come with the HP TouchSmart Apps Center which delivers one-touch access to free and subscription-based applications.

Let us take a look at the latest version of HP TouchSmart software. It will go about transforming the desktop into a “Magic Canvas” which allows one to freely drag applications, music, photos, videos and web content straight onto the desktop as “Magnets”. The inclusion of multilayered wallpapers will add further depth and perspective to the screen, while both new “Carousel” and “Magic Menu” options enable users to easily locate applications and content using not a mouse, but through your finger – now how about that? Of course, we believe parents who get this for their kids would have a strict “no food” policy when using the computer, since it goes without saying a greasy display is not entirely nice to look at. Either way, it would be wise to have some cleaning cloths lying around to get rid of fingerprints each time someone wants to drop by your home.
The HP TouchSmart310 desktop PC is tipped to hit the market on the 22nd of this month for $699.99, and the price will naturally rise upwards if you decide to tweak with what it comes with underneath the hood.

Binatone Brings Android Touch Tablet to India At Rs. 9,000

Binatone is launching a Touch Tablet at Rs. 9,000. The Home Surf Touch tablet, which is almost as slim as the iPad, runs Android 1.6, has:

• an 8 inch resistive screen
• Wi-Fi, 2 GB onboard storage
• 128 MB RAM
• powered by an ARM 11 667 MHz processor