Author: Serkadis

  • Is Facebook becoming a portal? Now 4th largest source of traffic to news sites

    New data from Experian Hitwise suggests that Facebook users are treating it increasingly like a portal — they’re using it as a source of news. Just under a year ago, less than 0.5% of visits to news and media sites came from Facebook, according to Experian Hitwise. Last week, 3.5% of visits to sites in the news and media category came from Facebook.

    The only sites sending more traffic to news and media sites were Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Even Google News was less of an important source of traffic to news and media sites — it accounted for only 1.39% of category upstream visits.

    Data from Nielsen released last week showed that in December 2009, Facebook had close to 120 million US users and that average time spent on the site increased by 200% over December 2008. All of the metrics services rank Facebook in the top 5 of all internet sites. The only sites that get more traffic are search engines (Google) and portals (Yahoo and MSN). Clearly the status update has the power to drive large amounts of traffic.

    The Wall Street Journal has already picked up on the importance of Facebook by setting up its own Facebook page. Blogs like VentureBeat figured out long ago that Facebook could boost traffic. How long will it take other news outlets to follow suit?


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  • Fallout: New Vegas info coming later

    Later this morning, we just might find ourselves face to face with some new information about the exciting new title from Bethesda, Fallout: New Vegas. Thanks to an official Tweet, we know it’s coming.
     
     
     

  • Three suspects in Zion murder plead not guilty

    Three men accused of killing a North Chicago man during a drug deal turned robbery pleaded not guilty Wednesday in Lake County Circuit Court.

    Anthony Sanford, 29, was shot several times in the chest and abdomen on New Year’s Eve in Zion.

    Accused triggerman Laderris Bennette, 20, of Beach Park faces a prison sentence ranging from 45 years to life if convicted of the slaying.

    Marshall Johnson, 19, of Beach Park, and Kersy Desarmes, 18, of Zion, could each be sentenced to a term of 20 to 60 years if convicted.

    Assistant State’s Attorney George Pappas said the trio had arranged to buy marijuana from Sanford in an alley in the 2800 block of Emmaus Avenue around 2:30 a.m. on Dec. 31.

    Instead, Pappas said, the three decided to rob Sanford and shot him multiple times before fleeing.

    They were arrested three days later and are all held on $3 million bond.

    Circuit Judge Fred Foreman ordered Bennette to appear in court Feb. 22, while Marshall and Desarmes are due to return Feb. 8.

    Read the original article on DailyHerald.com.


  • Hazel Crest man dies after vehicle strikes his bicycle

    A 61-year-old south suburban man died early Wednesday after the bicycle he was riding was struck by a vehicle in Ford Heights.

    Ronald Sims was found by a passerby on the side of the road sometime between 9 and 10 p.m. Tuesday, according to Cook County Sheriff’s office spokeswoman Lisa Gordon.

    Sims had been riding a bicycle on Cottage Grove Avenue near 12th Street in Ford Heights when he was struck by an unknown vehicle, she said.

    Sims, of 16775 Western Ave. in Hazel Crest, was pronounced dead at 1:48 a.m. at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office.

    An autopsy conducted Wednesday found that Sims died of multiple injuries from a motor vehicle striking a pedestrian and his death was ruled an accident, according to the medical examiner’s office.

    Sheriff’s police had no additional details on the incident or the vehicle.

    Read the original article from FOX Chicago News.


  • Western Illinois standoff over, shooter kills self in store

    Police say the suspected gunman at a western Illinois farm supply store is dead and the standoff is over.

    Macomb Police Chief Curt Barker says the suspect died of a self-inflicted gunshot would and was found dead Wednesday evening in the housewares section of the Farm King store in Macomb.

    Barker says police don’t know a motive but that gunman is not believed to be associated with the store.

    Barker says no one else was injured. He would not name the suspect.

    Witnesses say the standoff began around 1 p.m. Richard Moulton says he was buying a battery charger at the store when someone in an aisle nearby began arguing and shouting.

    Seconds later he heard about four or five gunshots and he and other customers then ran from the store.

    Read the original article from FOX Chicago News.


  • THQ CEO says Sony’s motion controller is actually named Arc, not Gem

    Last time we heard, Sony’s motion controller was named Gem. That was according to EA’s CEO, John Riccitiello, back in early December. But THQ’s head man said today in an investor call that it’s named Arc. Either way it still seems like a novelty Wii Remote controller knock-off to us. Pass. (unless there’s a killer game and then we’ll jump on the bandwagon head first)


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  • Spawn Labs ships gaming console hub

    Spawn Labs (remember them from TC50?) just started shipping their HD-720 gaming hub. The device allows for two way communication between the player and their console, enabling them to play remotely via a computer, assuming you have a broadband connection.

    The device only works with Windows and has some pretty stringent requirements for bandwidth. You must have at minimum 500Kbps for every player, and HD gaming will require at least 2Mbps in order to function. It’ll be interesting to see who comes out ahead in this, Onlive or Spawn Labs. Onlive is currently in beta testing of course, but bandwidth is a problem for them as well.

    The HD-720 has an MSRP of $200, and adapters are required for each console connected.

    [via Electronista]


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  • Everything I want to Do Is Illegal by Joel Salatin

    Virginia farmer Joel Salatin, owner of Polyface Farms, began farming as a teenager with the goal of milking 10 cows by hand. That would earn him $1,000 per cow per year, not a bad living for teenager in the late 70s.

    But there was one problem. It was illegal. Virginia, like many states, had banned the sale of raw milk.

    Salatin writes, “Even if we were to move forward with cheese or some milk product, we would still need a license and inspected facility. A friend who ran a Grade A dairy wanted to make cheese. But by the time he installed all the required machinery and hardware, it would have cost them (sic) $100,000 to make one pound of cheese. End of dream. He continues to struggle, barely making ends meet. I’d love to buy his cheese, even if he made it in the kitchen sink. And that’s important to understand.”

    In the book Salatin laments the demise of the local farmer’s market due to government health regulations and the bureaucratic minefield that is designed to stifle innovation and benefit the large agricultural-industrial complex at the expense of the small farmer.

    Continuing the story mentioned above, Salatin writes about how ideas start small and grow from there if they are good ideas. But government regulations—local, state and federal—are so onerous that the ideas are never given a chance.

    “How do I know if I have a cheese that people will want unless I can experiment with a few pounds and try to sell some to folks? How do I know I have a decent ice cream until I make some and sell to taste testers? Innovation demands embryonic births. The problem is that complying with all these codes required that even the prototype must be too big to be birthed. In reality then, what we have are still-birth dreams because the mandated accoutrements are too big,” Salatin writes.

    Salatin uses humor and common sense and tells his story of years of trying to figure out how to comply with the onerous regulations that have hampered his ability to farm in an ecologically sound, environmentally friendly, financially sound way. He covers all aspects of the effects of bureaucracy on his operation, including how the regulations change depending on the bureaucrat enforcing them. And oftentimes, Salatin writes, complying with the regulations not only makes no sense, it affects the quality of the food being produced.

    Filled with personal accounts of Salatin’s experiences over the years, this book is an entertaining view of the life of an American farmer. It will give you a new perspective on your ideas about whether the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is looking out for the consumer, or looking out for somebody else.

  • Back to the Land!

    In the coming months and years, self sufficiency will be the most important concept to our survival. In fact the words survival and self sufficiency are interchangeable and synonymous.

    The idea of self sufficiency and survival are hard and harsh concepts to Americans who are in every way dependent on the system. I fear that most may one day be very hungry and forced to resort to stealing their food.

    I have often remarked that an honest man will steal if he and his family are hungry. And if desperate enough, he may plunder or may even kill.

    The only exception to this is the age group that was born in the 1930s. This small group could easily revert to the land without having a nervous breakdown.

    If you have ever watched the movie, Gone With the Wind, you remember the desperate conditions people endured just after the Civil War. Prior to the war Scarlet O’Hara had the finest things that life in the Old South could give, but the war and devastation reduced her to poverty. When the war was over she still had the land. But with everything gone except the land, Scarlet was reduced to living on turnips and whatever she could grow literally with her hands.

    That scene happened for real in Germany during World War I. Turnips became survival.

    For more on food and water storage, and everything you need to prepare for the hard times that are coming, see my special report, How to Survive the Collapse of Civilization.

    But this doesn’t have to happen to you if you take small but determined action while there is yet time.

    Oh, you have trouble believing that Scarlet’s plight could happen to you? Suppose you take my suggestion and prepare, and of all horrors, nothing bad happens? Well, everything that you have done to prepare—everything you have stored—you can consume.

    Plus, you will have on hand food bought before the coming inflation makes limited food available at very high prices.

    Most low-income people are having trouble getting affordable food now. Look around and you will see all the people who are overweight because they only get mostly low-cost high-carbohydrate food.

    Some readers have asked lately how to go about storing food and how they can prepare for when times get rough. Here are answers to some of them:

    What food items to store? Try to store food that has shelf-life and always rotate it. I bought a ton of brown rice 40 years ago and I am still eating it, after raising my children on it. I used diatomaceous earth to preserve it. Diatomaceous earth dehydrates bugs in grains.

    Canned goods—fruits, vegetables and meats—have an expiration date. Buy extra every trip you make to the grocery store and be sure your rotate your stock to use the oldest first.

    There are food kits available online and in some survival/outdoor stores that will sustain you through emergencies. Some of these contain all you need for survival and are marked to show how many people can survive off the food included and for how long.

    How much to store? That is an individual problem and a difficult question that contains no set answer. The best bet is to watch what your family eats in a week and make note of it (how many servings of meat, vegetables, fruit and grains). Then you’ll have an idea of how much must be set aside for each week you think an emergency might exist. As for water, experts say each person needs about two gallons per day for drinking, cooking and hygiene. A minimum of three days supply should be kept on hand, and more is better.

    Store seeds in your refrigerator. All who want a garden should store natural seeds, not hybrid seeds. Store some each year from your crop.

    (Editor’s note: For more detailed information on surviving food and water shortages and more, see my special report, How to Survive the Collapse of Civilization. I have also reviewed an excellent book on food and water storage entitled Emergency Food Storage and Survival Handbook. Click on the title to read the review and for a link to purchase the book.

  • Bags of body parts found in Southwest Side trash

    A waste disposal employee discovered bags of human body parts in a Southwest Side trash container as he worked his usual route Wednesday afternoon.

    The bags containing body parts were found about noon in the 8100 block of South Western Avenue, police News Affairs Officer Gabrielle Lesniak said.

    A waste disposal employee discovered what he believed to be human body parts in the garbage, Lesniak said.

    Police confirmed the body parts are human, but could not comment on what type of body parts were found, because they are considered evidence in a death investigation, she said.

    It was not immediately clear how many bags were discovered, although Lesniak indicated it was more than one.

    A Cook County Medical Examiner’s office spokesman confirmed the discovery and said police and investigators remained at the scene as of 4 p.m.

    Wentworth Area detectives are investigating.

    Read the original article from FOX Chicago News.


  • Arbitrator sides with CTA on plans to lay off more than 1,000 union workers next week

    The CTA won a battle Wednesday in its bid to lay off more than 1,000 union workers next week.

    An arbitrator ruled the plan is legal.

    The issue was which workers could be laid off. The union said, under its contract, layoffs are to be made by seniority. In this case, that would’ve meant temporary and part-time employees being cut.

    Nevertheless, the arbitrator ruled CTA can lay off whichever workers it wants.

    The union called the ruling repugnant.

    Unless the union and the CTA reach a last-minute deal on pay cuts, 1,067 workers will be laid off on Sunday.

    CTA is making service cuts in conjunction with the layoffs, which will reduce frequency of service on seven CTA rail lines, eliminate nine express bus routes and reduce frequency of service on 119 bus routes and hours on 41.

    Read the original article from FOX Chicago News.


  • Sardar Muhammad Khan killed in Islamabad

    areview.co.cc: Former Attorney General and Judge (R) of Peshawar High Court Sardar Muhammad Khan was killed in Islamabad. He was also deputed as the Advocate General NWFP and was a member of Law and Justice Commission. Sardar Khan came to Islamabad from Peshawar for a case, he was walking on the road on road at sector G-11/2 when a group of people tried to abduct him and on resistance he was shot several times. Sardar Khan was a senior lawyer of the Supreme Court and he was also an assistant lawyer during the NRO case. President Zardari has ordered an inquiry into the murder of Sardar Khan. President of the Supreme Court Bar Association Qazi Anwar announced to observe black day today and lawyers would abandon court proceedings after 11 AM.

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  • Man dies from December stabbing

    A 52-year-old Stone Park man died early Wednesday, more than six weeks after being stabbed by his live-in girlfriend during a domestic dispute in their west suburban apartment.

    James Mitchell, of 1722 N. Mannheim Rd. in Stone Park, died at 12:36 a.m. Wednesday at the Oak Park Healthcare Center at 625 N. Harlem Ave. in Oak Park, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office.

    An autopsy Wednesday found Mitchell died of multiple stab wounds and his death was ruled a homicide, according to the medical examiner’s office.

    Stone Park police Deputy Chief Giuseppe Capece said Mitchell was apparently stabbed at his home by his 42-year-old live-in girlfriend at 12:59 a.m. Dec. 21, 2009.

    Mitchell was originally taken to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, then transferred to the Oak Park facility, according to an Oak Park police spokesman.

    Detectives initially took a statement from Mitchell’s girlfriend but were unable to talk to him about what happened because he was in a coma, Capece said.

    Capece said Mitchell was in a coma until his death.

    No charges had been filed as of Wednesday evening, although detectives were contacting the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office to confer about charges, Capece said.

    Read the original article from FOX Chicago News.


  • Symbian’s revealing something tomorrow, but what? (update: open source!)

    Oh, Symbian, you tease! For an organization as committed to openness and sharing its roadmap (and its code) as the Symbian Foundation, it’s pretty unusual that they’d be counting down to a big unveiling of anything — but sure enough, they’ve been tweeting decreasing numbers with the hashtag “#symbiancountdown” starting back on January 26 with 108. Today we’re down to 12 (it’s hard to say what sort of jacked-up counting system they’re using here) with a note of “what will tomorrow bring?” so it looks like we can expect this all to go down in just a few short hours. One thought is that they could announce that Symbian^3 has gone Functionally Complete, a key milestone in getting it pushed to devices — but that’s a shot in the dark. Don’t disappoint, guys.

    Update: Looks like it may be the full source for Symbian^2, the Foundation’s first open release.

    Symbian’s revealing something tomorrow, but what? (update: open source!) originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • HP increases lead over Acer in worldwide laptop shipments

    Acer pulled closer to HP than ever in the third quarter of 2009, when it shipped 8.86 million laptops compared to HP’s 9.91 million, but it looks like things swung well back in the other direction during the fourth quarter. According to DigiTimes, HP shipped a whopping 11.38 million laptops worldwide in Q4, while Acer moved 9.5 million units during the same time period — an sizable increase in itself, but likely not enough to cause too much celebration at Acer HQ. As you might suspect, the holiday shopping season was largely responsible for the jump in sales from both companies, with strong sales in North America in particular said to be the main reason behind HP’s widening lead.

    HP increases lead over Acer in worldwide laptop shipments originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • Poll results are in on WMPoweruser Series ROM next step

    image

    We recently had a poll going on asking what device we should work on getting our ROMz on and we got nothing from it. The Poll did not really help us know as to where to go with this, and as someone commented, the list was made of mostly HTC devices and they all already have many ROMz going for it.

    Due to that, we want to ask one more time, what non HTC devices would you like our ROMz on. The only device we got out of the post and are currently pushing to get the ROM going for is the TG01. We noticed the device produced 2 pages of comments asking for their first cooked ROM to come from us and with that and this post on Xda and Modaco asking people to vote for the TG01. We read that and felt bad that the device is super powered with snapdragon goodness and is crippled with Toshiba badness… so we are currently working on it, so yes we are working on it, but we have no promises at this point, so lets just hope.

    The LG incite is in the works along side the Acer neotouch, HTC Hd, Samsung Omnia I & II.
    Are we forgetting something?

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  • $20,000 reward offered in credit-union robbery

    The FBI and Gurnee Police announced a reward of up to $20,000 Wednesday for information leading to identification and arrest of the man who shot at police and robbed the Community Trust Credit Union.

    The FBI is offering the reward “primarily because of the violent nature of the crime,” said Ross Rice, spokesman from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

    “We’re hoping (the reward) attracts media and the public’s attention,” Rice said.

    Witnesses described the bandit as an black man, 6 feet to 6-feet, 2-inches tall. The suspect, who acted alone in the Jan. 28 robbery, was a wearing all black clothing and a mask.

    Authorities said the man forced entry at 7 p.m. when the credit union on Route 41 in Gurnee was closing. He used plastic zip ties to bind the hands of employees.

    After he was unable to open the credit union vault, he fled and spotted an officer who was responding to the robbery, according to authorities.

    He shot at the officer before running behind a nearby building and possibly to a waiting vehicle. The officer was not injured, the news release stated.

    Anyone with information is asked call the FBI at (312) 421-6700.

    Read the original article on DailyHerald.com.


  • Two Little Laptops With a Lot to Offer Their Core Users [Personal Technology]

    For all the talk about new tablet computers like Apple’s iPad, laptops remain the computer industry’s bread and butter, and smaller laptops are especially popular with consumers.

    So, I’ve been testing two diminutive laptops, both with 11-inch screens, that show how clever engineering can take a familiar device and customize it for particular audiences. These two machines couldn’t be more different, and they are aimed at radically different customers. Neither is a bargain-priced netbook, but both were designed with compactness in mind.

    [ See post to watch video ]

    One of these products is from Dell’s Alienware group, which specializes in potent computers for hard-core gamers. The device is called the M11x, and it came out this week at a base price of $799. It’s an attempt to pack much of the power gamers typically tote around inside thicker, heavier laptops into a much more portable chassis. The M11x weighs about 4.4 pounds, which in the gaming world is svelte, and is about 1.3 inches thick.

    The other machine I’ve been testing was released by Sony over the holiday shopping season with relatively little mass-market fanfare. It’s called the Vaio X, starts at $1,299 and is easily the lightest laptop I’ve ever reviewed.

    In fact, it’s so light, at just 1.6 pounds, that at first I thought it must be a mock-up made of cardboard. The Vaio X is also just a tad over a half an inch thick. Its processor and graphics system are like a netbook’s, so it can’t come close to matching the Dell (DELL) in performance. But it isn’t meant for the performance market. It’s meant for highly mobile users who do typical computing, want to show off something sleek and can tolerate a high price and weak battery life in the standard configuration.

    The M11x is a chunky box that, despite its size, is immediately recognizable as an Alienware product. The power button looks like a space alien’s face, and, along with the keyboard and some other features on the front edge, it can be made to light up and pulse in a variety of bright colors.

    Inside, it sports dual graphics systems—one powerful discrete graphics card for heavy-duty gaming, and one lesser integrated card for other tasks or when you want to save battery life. You can switch between them quickly, without rebooting.

    I am not a serious gamer, but I briefly tested the M11x on some included 3D games, and they ran smoothly and well. The machine also did great on high-definition video and on common tasks like Web browsing, email and word processing. It’s also packed with ports, including an HDMI connector, the new standard for easy hookup to a TV.

    On my tough battery test, the Alienware did pretty well, clocking in at just under four hours with the more potent graphics in use, and just under five hours with the lesser graphics turned on. In normal usage patterns, you could stretch these figures.

    The downsides to this machine are that the keyboard is cramped, and the specs on the $799 base model might not satisfy a serious gamer or video creator. It has a relatively small 160-gigabyte hard disk and a low-end Pentium processor. The model I tested, with a 500-gigabyte hard disk, a Core 2 Duo processor and twice the base 2 gigabytes of memory, costs $1,099.

    The Sony Vaio X is a world apart, a reminder that the company, which years ago pioneered small, thin, costly laptops, can keep doing so. This little computer can get lost in your briefcase.

    The Vaio X comes in several colors, but has modest specs for the price. It uses the Intel Atom processor, common in netbooks, and integrated graphics. It only comes with 2 gigabytes of memory, and the base $1,299 model has a very small 64-gigabyte solid-state drive for storage. You can double the storage on the $1,499 model I tested.

    The Sony (SNE) is gorgeous, and its lightness amazed everyone to whom I showed it. It handled all the common tasks I threw at it, including some HD video from YouTube, which played fine. But it also has a cramped keyboard, plus a tiny touch pad.

    In addition to Wi-Fi, the Sony also includes a 3G cellular modem from Verizon, which I tested and which worked well. If you opt to use it, you have to pay Verizon, with monthly contracts starting at $40 and no-contract usage at $15 a day or $30 a week. All these plans have usage caps.

    The Achilles’ heel of the Sony is battery life. Its petite built-in battery got a miserable one hour and 48 minutes in my test, which might mean 2.5 hours in normal use. Sony does include an expanded battery with the unit, which got an impressive eight hours and 11 minutes in my test, or perhaps as much as 10 in typical use. But this battery is huge. It covers the entire bottom of the machine and must be affixed with screws. The battery roughly triples the computer’s thickness and brings its weight to nearly three pounds.

    These two creative designs show that, despite the coming wave of tablets, the laptop is still a platform for innovation.

    Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free of charge, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at [email protected].

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  • Kwedit launches alternative for those without credit cards to pay for games

    There are a lot of people — teens in particular — who don’t have bank accounts or credit cards to pay for online purchases. They can use prepaid cards to sign up for online services. But alternative payment provider Kwedit wants to make it far easier for them to buy digital content, virtual goods, or online games.

    The Mountain View, Calif.-based company is launching new payment services today that knocks down the barriers to online purchases and could even get more users to convert from playing a game for free to purchasing items in the game. If it does that, it could generate considerable revenue growth for game publishers and others that rely upon virtual goods business models.

    Like many things involving teenagers, this scheme involves 7-Eleven stores. Teens can buy prepaid cards for games at the stores now. But in the middle of the night, that doesn’t really help them if they want to make a purchase in an online game so that they can join with their friends, said Danny Shader, chief executive of Kwedit and a longtime veteran of the payment industry.

    Virtual goods are expected to generate $1.6 billion in revenues in the U.S. this year, according to Inside Network. But teens can be left out because 95 percent of them pay for goods with cash.

    “While they don’t have credit cards, they do have cash and they do have access to computers,” Shader said in an interview. “If we can reduce the friction for them, we can raise the percentage of people who pay for items in free games.”

    Kwedit is one of many targeting the “unbanked,” or those without credit cards and bank accounts. In the U.S., the unbanked add up to 25 percent of American households, or tens of millions of people who primarily use cash for transactions. Others serving them include Rixty, which lets kids trade in their coins at Coinstar booths in stores so they can get coupons to play games.

    Kwedit has two different services to offer the unbanked. One is Kwedit Direct, which lets you make a payment for online services via any of 5,800 7-Eleven stores. All you have to do is print a Kwedit Slip with payment information and take it into the store. The clerk scans it and then the payment is credited to the correct account. You can also print out a Kwedit payment slip and mail cash with it. And you can can ask a friend or family member to pay the bill for you in a feature called Pass the Duck.

    The other new service is Kwedit Promise, which lets you “play now, pay later.” That is essentially like Bill Me Later, which eBay bought in 2008 for $945 million. You can pay later using the different payment methods included under Kwedit Direct. Kwedit gives you a Kwedit Score that is a measure of your reliability in making payments. The higher your score, the more you can bill under Kwedit Promise.

    The concept is similar to a FICO score used to guage credit risk for credit card holders. For teens, it thus becomes a way to learn financial responsibility, Shader said. As with credit cards, there is a risk that the unbanked will default with Kwedit Promise. But the good thing is that with virtual goods, the actual loss in case someone defaults is zero, as it costs nothing to produce another virtual good.

    Kwedit is available today on more than 100 popular online sites, including FooPets and PuzzlePirates. Full told, Kwedit will work in 1,000 online games. Kwedit is included as a payment method in Jambool’s Social Gold, a popular payment system on Facebook.

    The company was founded in 2009 and has 13 employees and contractors. It has raised $3 million from True Ventures, Kapor Capital (owned by Mitch Kapor), Maples Investments, Endeavor Partners, Fenwick and West, and angel investors.

    The company was founded by Shader and a number of successful tech entrepreneurs, including Steve Capps, creator of the Apple Lisa and the user interface for the Apple Newton. Shader founded Accept.com, an early consumer-to-consumer payments company bought by Amazon.com in 1999 for $175 million. He also founded Good Technology, which Motorola acquired in 2007 for $500 million.


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  • Did THQ CEO spill the beans on Sony’s PlayStation Arc name?

    Sony is most certainly not going to call its new wand-like game control device a “Sony Motion Controller.” That has been the placeholder name since the company talked about it at the E3 trade show last summer.

    But the device, which lets gamers control a game using gestures with a high degree of accuracy, will reportedly be called the PlayStation Arc. Sony tipped its hand by registering the web domain, playstationarc.com. And today, THQ chief executive let slip the name Arc several times during the company’s earnings call today.

    “Like most new platforms, we want to be there at launch,” said Farrell.

    The device went by the code name Gem, which was also leaked by a loose-lipped chief executive, John Riccitiello of Electronic Arts. It will debut this fall. Now if only Microsoft could give a real name to its code-named Project Natal, a gesture-control system that also arrives this fall.

    [photo credit: VG247]


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