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  • My Cloud from Western Digital

    Nowadays, it is almost impossible to create a digital baggage. You need to start by backing up your PC’s data. Your devices also need more storage space for backups, offloading photos to storing secondary media libraries. If you think like me, then you definitely need cloud based storage services.

    With the help of a 2TB external NAS Western Digital’s WD My Cloud, you can create your personal cloud at home and consolidate your data within easy reach.  Any Wi-Fi-enabled mobile device can read and write to the drive because the external hard drive connects through Ethernet cable to your wireless router instead of the traditional USB to your PC, Android or iOS devices.

    The WD My Cloud hardware sets up instantly by plugging in the AC adapter and snapping the Ethernet cable into your wireless router. There are downloadable and administrative apps for PCs and Macs and also apps for Android and iOS mobile devices. You can also type in a URL in any browser to connect to the drive’s onboard management tools, much like you would do to gain access to your browser based dashboard on the router.

    After login in to the WD portal and creating a My Cloud password account, all your mobile devices connected can read and write to the drive whenever they are connected to Wi-Fi.

    You can move content into folders called ‘shares’ that can be either private or public. It is possible to set up permissions for users of any of the shares. You will start off with some preset shares that include a private share with your name, a public folder SmartWare folder for backups and a “TimeMachineBackup” folder for Mac users.

  • VoIP Provider Jajah Shattered By Telecom Giant Telefonica after Skype and Others Drive Prices to Bottom

    European telephone giant and 5th largest carrier worldwide, Telefonica said that it will shut down Janah, its VoIP unit on January 31st 2014. This is yet another sign of mounting trouble in the VoIP industry.

    The shattering will end what was once considered a success story in the industry. Janah was once of the very few companies offering VoIP services that survived the onslaught of consolidation in 2010. Telefonica was sold by Skype for $207 million, at a time when even competitors like Jaxtr and Jangl were sold for pennies in asset sales or went out of business.

    The closure means that Jajah Direct services and Jajah.com will no longer be offered and customers will not be able to make any calls. According to the company, Janah account holders will continue to use their accounts until31st January. However, the statement did not shed light on why Janah is closing.

    It is possible that Janah was not making any meaningful profit and may even have been getting losses. The company had clearly lost the race to Skype that was acquired by Microsoft in 2011. Earlier this year, Microsoft indicated that Skype now had 33% of worldwide VoIP calls.

    However, industry experts have pointed out that the voice traffic is dying; has become commoditized and overall prices, revenue and traffic are dropping. This means that Skype’s victory may be a hollow one for Microsoft, which has declined to indicate whether Skype is profitable or not.

    All this has not been helped by the large number of popular VoIP providers including Viber, Vonage Google Voice and FaceTime from Apple.

  • University Community Linked By Unified Communication


    The University of Washington has sought the services of unified communication to combine its data, voice and networks as well as to build a platform that supports diverse products.

    The University of Washington finds the effective connection of data and people extremely paramount. The university serves more than 51,000 students as well as about 31,000 faculty members across 3 different academic campuses as well as 500 buildings scattered across Bothell, Wash, Tacoma, and Seattle.

    About three years ago, the communication infrastructure in the University was out of date. It was not sufficient for supporting many of the systems and applications that are needed in today’s education environment such as BYOD, mobility and video conferencing. Roland Rivera, UW's director of network strategy and telecommunications noted that better integration of data services is extremely critical and it was apparent that there is need for getting unified communications infrastructure.

    The unified communication system supports products from different vendors such as AVST, Microsoft Lync, Polycom and Cisco. With the use of a web-based management console, the IT tem can isolate different communities of use, oversee routing and dial plan management and also better manage licensing and security.

    Rivera indicates that the unified communication solution has brought the school’s infrastructure to the digital age. In the long run, it is expected to trim IT costs as well as administrative overheads while providing greater flexibility and simplicity.

  • mSpy: A Terrifying Smartphone And Tablet Spying App


    If you are keen in preserving your privacy, then you should definitely be weary of the mSpy app. When installed on an iOS or Android device, the app can track phone records, keyboard strokes and location data in the background without your knowledge.

    It is specially designed for legal monitoring use, and there are legitimate reasons for installing it if you intend to use it for legal matters. For instance, companies can use the app for monitoring company phones for security purposes. Parents can also use the app for monitoring the usage of devices that they give their children.

    The app dances around the issue of legal surveillance and has a disclaimer stating that it is intended for use by companies or parents who own or have legal consent for monitoring. The disclaimer further indicates that the users of such devices should be notified that they are under surveillance.

    However, on mSpy’s website, you can also see that it is indicated as a bugging tool for gathering evidence from a phone. It further ominously refers the tapped phone as the target and states that the app is 100% undetectable. However, this information is not necessary if users are informed that they are being monitored.

  • For Greater Insight And Control over Content, Cloud Storage Provider Box Buys dLoop

    Box, a cloud storage company has acquired dLoop, a data analytic firm. This acquisition is expected to add protection, enterprise content discovery and insight to Box’s platform that offers employees easy sync and sharing between several apps and devices and platforms.

    According to an announcement that was made this week, dLoop technologies is expected to provide permission level, control and visibility of files that enterprises require in order to trust cloud storage.

    The acquisition comes just a week following the announcement by Box of its intentions to raise another $100 million in venture investment that will be in form of Series E-1 Preferred stock.  This is according to a recent regulatory filing.

    Box had earlier developed a powerful admin tool that helps to protect business critical content. These tools are expected to expand following the acquisition of dLoop and offer administrators even greater safeguards on enterprise content.

    At the moment, dLoop is able to discover documents that would normally be unreachable by pattern matching solutions or the normal search. This is done by creating continuous documents graphs as well as clusters from unstructured content with the use of machine-learning algorithms that find related and relevant content.

    Following the announcement, dLoop co-founder Divya Jain will be joining Box in order to lead their efforts in advanced content analysis and data classification.

  • Amazon Black Friday 2013 Deals For HDTVs, Cameras, Tablets And Games Galore Goes Live

    The black Friday deals from Amazon are finally up and running. The site has some pretty impressive bargains this season. Here are some of the hot deals available from BlackFriday.com.

    This year, all categories are covered by Amazon Black Friday Deals. You can find products that are marked off for the entire week and there are a number of products with limited-time deals that offer even much more savings. There is an additional deal on Amazon every 10 minutes and buyers can expect great bargains coming later in the day.

    The black Friday deals include a number of electronic products including many HDTVS, laptops and digital cameras with 30% off or more, many tablets with 20% off or more and Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 at 40% off or more. Amazon also has superb black Friday 2013 deals on smartphones, movies, gift cards as well as jewelry. You can also get great deals on grocery items this season.

    Some of the Amazon black Friday 2013 highlights include Samsung 40-inch LED HDTV for $397 that comes with free prime shipping. You can also get the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 for $159.99 with a pink LeapPad 2 Explorer for $59.99.

    However, so far there hasn’t been any indication of a strong black Friday deal on any of the iPad versions, which is one of the hottest items for the season. Comments and tips about the Amazon Black Friday are welcomed and you can share details about the best deals that you have found.

  • Nokia Upgrades Asha 501 with VoIP and WhatsApp

    Nokia has updated Asha 501 with WhatsApp, voice-over-IP and Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync features. The company has continued to improve the competitiveness of the Asha family while waiting for Microsoft to complete the acquisition of its devices and services business. At the moment, the company is still facing insurmountable competition from low-cost android based devices.

    The GSM Asha 501 was launched in May and it features a 3-inch screen, Wi-Fi, a 3.2 megapixel camera and the choice between one or two sim cards. The list price was $99 without taxes or subsidies at the time of the launch.

    The upgrade offers users similar software to what is used in the recently announced Asha 500, 502 and 503. Once the update has been received, users can download the WhatsApp client and begin sending instant message.

    The software allows users to make voice calls over data connections through the use of social messaging Apps like Nimbuzz in the beginning and more are expected soon. Nokia has also implemented the Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync features for enterprise users.

    Nokia has also made significant changes to the operating system, not just the third-party applications. Users for example can long press the screen to access the camera settings, swipe the screen to start the camera and also swipe to switch to the video mode to the image mode and vice versa.

    Fastlane is a key feature in the user interface that shows social networks, apps and recently accessed contacts. Users can now personalize the application to feature their desired contents. The users can also choose to view full notifications or notification icons on the lock screen.

  • Bitcasa Announces a Tenfold Increase in Unlimited Cloud Storage Pricing

    Cloud storage provider, Bitcasa that has established itself as a provider of unlimited cloud storage invoked the wrath of its customers this week when it unveiled a new pricing scheme that increased its unlimited storage plan tenfold. However, there is a good chance that the new price scheme will not affect all customers.

    Bitcasa, up until this price increase was charging organizations $99 annually for the unlimited cloud storage, but this price has been bumped up to $999. According to Brian Taptich, Bitcasa CEO, the current pricing plans for existing customers will not change. Besides, 98% of Bitcasa’s customers use less than 5TB of data in the cloud. Taptich further noted that 92% of the customers use less than 1TB.

    New customers will be affected and 1TB of data will ring at $99 annually but it will not make a big difference considering the amount of data Taptich said that customers use. Those who will be most affected will be the ones who are looking for a large amount of storage.

    New customers on 5TB storage plan will pay $499 annually while the unlimited plan will cost $999 annually. The free plan will also be changing, with old customers keeping their 10GB of free storage while new customers will be provided with 5GB of free storage instead.

    The new changes will not affect the current customers for now but it has certainly not been received well by Bitcasa’s followers.

    Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT, termed the price increase as ‘breathtaking’, although he indicated that the reasoning seems sensible. He further noted that the growing competition will keep pressure on Bitcasa.

  • Samsung to Jump-Start Black Friday HDTV Pricing from This Sunday

    If you are hungry for Samsung’s affordable HDTV but you cannot bear to face the crown on the biggest shopping day mayhem, then you are in luck.  Samsung plans to drastically cut the price of dozens of its HDTVs for the black Friday sales from this Sunday (Nov 24).

    The price cuts will also be offered on the home theater audio. The deals are outstanding, with several HDTV prices being slashed 50% off the retail.

    Samsung has provided two ways for buying the offers. You can register through Samsung’s Black Friday Week Website and obtain all the details for pre-ordering from the company direct through Saturday, or wait for Sunday and order at these reduced prices at participating brick and mortar or online stores or from Samsung’s website. Either way, you will be able to beat the crowds on Black Friday and get the same amazing prices.

    Samsung is the number one HDTV selling brand in the US. Many of its Plasma HDTVs and LED LCDs earned great reviews from HD Gurus and others. Our highest ratings are for the F8500 series plasma that will be available on Sunday at significantly reduced prices.

    Starting Sunday, you will be able to view the prices reflected when you search for the HDTV, home theater systems and soundbars on Amazon or from your local retailers.

  • New Sales vice President Appointed by Mohu


    Brett Eppley has been appointed as Mohu’s vice president of sales. He is set to "further enlarge Mohu’s retail availability of HDTV antennas as well as other consumer electronic products." Eppley is poised to bring a wealth of experience to the company after serving as general manager for national accounts at VOXX international for the past three years. VOXX international markets digital TV antennas through its RCA, Audiovox and Terk brands.

    Eppley was part of the team that in 2002 launched the revolutionary Sirius Satellite Radio Service. He has spent eight years at Sirius/XM as director of national accounts and a further 12 years at Thomson Consumer Electronics as a key and national accounts manager. He has a degree in public relations and marketing from Appalachian State University.

    Mark Buff, president and CEO of Mohu said that Brett has vast experience, drive, effectiveness and industrial knowledge that Mohu values in its quest to assemble an all-star team. He also indicated that Mohu is on the road to becoming a market leader and is fortunate to have a person with Brett’s Caliber for the role.

    Brett Eppley indicated that he is pleased to join Mohu and his 25 years of experience in the consumer electronics industry will help to take the company into the nest level. He is looking forward to working with the team in developing the company’s top rated products.

    Mohu recently unveiled the Curved 50 and Curved 30 indoor HDTV antennas. These antennas are in a new class that combines elegance and exceptional performance.