Despite being the only carrier to pre-load Google Wallet on its devices, Sprint is purportedly looking at offering its own mobile payment system. Sources have told NFC Times that Sprint is currently working with banks and service providers to help launch its “Touch” wallet as an alternative to Google’s payment program, as well as AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile’s upcoming Isis system. Unlike with Google Wallet, Sprint’s “Touch” will allow the carrier to have complete control over partners, security measures, API distribution, and development. Sprint is also said to have hired NFC software and systems provider Sequent Software in the process.

Meanwhile, Google is believed to be working on Wallet 2.0, which will put more emphasis on…

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An awesomely creepy parody of Justin Bieber’s “Boyfriend” has gone viral, netting 1.4 million YouTube views in two days. The wide-eyed singer, known as “Laina,” in the video also now stars in text-over-photo memes.

Her song — about a possessive girlfriend — spawned from Bieber’s online contest that asked fans to take the music from “Boyfriend” and write lyrics to it from a female perspective.

“If I was your girlfriend, I’d never let you leave without a small recording device, taped under your sleeve,” Laina sings. “And you’ll only look your best and shave your face for me. Don’t hide secrets in your house, ’cause boy I stole the key.”

SEE ALSO: Bieber Fans Break Social Media… Continue reading…

More About: celebrities, Entertainment, humor, justin bieber, music video, parody, trending, viral videos

Gitte Stark

“Lovely yellow rapeseed against a clear blue sky”

Click here to view this gallery.

You may not realize it, but every day you come in contact with a far-off corner of the world. We wake up to alarms manufactured thousands of miles away, we buy food grown in faraway orchards, and thanks to technology, we can instantly interact with one another from across the globe.

It’s amazing how much technology has changed and enriched our lives. The world feels like it is shrinking as technology opens doors and expands our global reach and familiarity.

However, to quote Dorothy, there is still no place like home.

In last week’s Mashable Photo Challenge, we invited you to send in pictures of anything homegrown, meaning anything from backyard blueberries to a device you created… Continue reading…

More About: community, Mashable Photo Challenge, photography, Photos, trending

“When Kirk asks the computer some complex question and it answers him intelligently, drawing from a bunch of different sources, that’s the vision,” Google spokesperson Jason Freidenfelds told me last week. He then introduced me to John Giannandrea, Director of Engineering at Google, and the man tasked with making the Star Trek computer come to life. Giannandrea and his team recently launched Knowledge Graph, a informational meta-sidebar you may’ve noticed in Google Search. Depending on whether you search a person, place, or thing, Google now delivers contextual results that often provide the answers you’re looking for, no clicking involved. Knowledge Graph is a database of “common sense” factual data tied together by 500 million entities…

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The publication of the original “Scamworld” article rattled some cages, and it also opened a lot of doors. We were contacted by a number of insiders — victims, former employees, and other people in that world, and they all wanted to talk.

Some of them wanted to talk about Prosper, Inc.

The Provo, Utah-based company bills itself as “one of the most trusted names in one-to-one personalized education.” It is often referred to as a coaching floor or a call center, but the one term that we see used interchangeably is “boiler room.”

In “Scamworld” we discussed how Prosper partners with Internet Marketers like Mike Filsaime to sell coaching programs, which are kind of like the “correspondence courses” that Radar used to…

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It was last year that Intel chose Computex, a computer tradeshow in Taiwan, to introduce its Ultrabook concept to the world. Twelve months later, 110-plus models are in the pipeline, which meant the Taipei Convention Center was overrun by skinny, lightweight laptops. Make that skinny, touch-enabled laptops. Between those new Ivy Bridge chips and Microsoft putting the finishing touches on Windows 8, this week’s show was nothing if not a five-day-long wedding between two tech giants: almost every device on display here was a vehicle for showing off Microsoft’s glossy new OS. At every turn, a celebration of touchscreen notebooks.

With more than 30 hands-on posts this week, we can see where one Core i5 laptop might look like the next, or how you might have failed to keep up with Jonney Shih’s rapid-fire product announcements. Now that we’re wrapping up here in Taiwan, though, we’re ready to take a step back and think about what it is we just saw. Whether you felt overwhelmed by our wall-to-wall coverage or just need to catch up, we suggest you meet us past the break for a quick recap of all the new Ultrabooks. Oh, and if you’re in the market for a new laptop, you can check your trigger-happy finger at the door. With few exceptions, we’re not expecting these to go on sale until the fall, when Windows 8 is expected to start shipping.

Continue reading The Ultrabooks of Computex 2012

The Ultrabooks of Computex 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Jun 2012 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Verge has been sent an alleged photo of AT&T’s next Motorola smartphone codenamed “Dinara,” a device that launched late last year in China and has been rumored for AT&T ever since. Featuring a 720p display and Android 4.0, it seems a fitting successor to the Atrix 2 — a surprisingly good phone (particularly at its $99 launch price) that was partially overshadowed by the launch of the iPhone 4S and AT&T’s LTE network, both of which occurred around the same time. Whether the Dinara will be called the Atrix 3 or something else, we’re not sure, but the July 26th date on the screen might provide a reasonable indication of when we could expect it on shelves.

It’ll also have LTE (as all of AT&T’s latest smartphones do), but don’t expect G…

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MetroPCS is known for offering 4G LTE smartphones on the cheap, but it’s going for a record today. The Activa 4G isn’t just Huawei’s first LTE smartphone in the US, it’s temporarily the least expensive LTE phone in the country at $149 contract-free for a “limited time.” Digging around, it’s certainly possible to find out how Huawei and MetroPCS reached that price: the 3.5-inch, 320 x 480 screen, 800MHz processor and five-megapixel rear shooter won’t have Verizon Galaxy S III customers developing second thoughts. Still, there is a front VGA camera on the Android 2.3-toting phone, and MetroPCS preloads a copy of the movie Kung-Fu Panda 2 on the bundled 4GB microSD card. You won’t have to wait at all if it sounds like a bargain, as the Activa 4G is already sitting in stores real and virtual as you read this.

Huawei Activa 4G gets your 4G LTE fix on MetroPCS for $149 contract-free originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Jun 2012 11:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Developers are eagerly awaiting the news that will come out of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) next week, and according to a new report, they’re looking forward to it more than the Android updates likely to surface from the upcoming Google I/O event in late June, a report suggests.

The ongoing battle between Apple and Google’s mobile platforms is only going to heat up this month, but developers are more looking forward to seeing what’s in store for iOS, according to the report from Flurry Analytics, which tracks over 36 billion end-user sessions across more than a 500 million devices each month.

The success of Apple and Google’s mobile platforms is largely dependent… Continue reading…

More About: apple, Google, iOS, trending, wwdc

We heard yesterday about a possible Metro-style redesign for the venerable Hotmail. At that time, we had minimal information, but German site WinFuture purports to have the first leaked screenshots of the new webmail. If these are real, it’s the kind of minimalist design we’d expect, with brightly-colored flat backgrounds and tile-style icons for switching between Mail, Contacts, Calendar, and SkyDrive. It looks usable at this point, but some oddly-placed blank space suggests more features are coming soon, and WinFuture says there’s also a mysterious vertical bar that’s not shown in the screenshots.

We’re not sure how or how much the author got to interact with Metro-style Hotmail, but he reports that several features are still…

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Ever wondered what goes on up at the International Space Station? We like to think it’s all floating around and eating freeze-dried steak. Astronaut Don Pettit decided to take a break from his no-doubt mundane routine and capture the spectacular image you see above. We say image, it’s actually multiple 30-second exposure snaps layered on top of each other. Needless to say the result is both humbling, and hypnotic. Best of all? There’s a collection of them, waiting to steal your afternoon with slack-jawed wonderment. Hit the source for the mind-melt.

Visualized: Stunning long-exposure ‘star trail’ photo taken from the ISS originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Jun 2012 11:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Security firm Symantec has witnessed Flame malware removing itself from infected machines, overwriting the information with random characters to cover its tracks. This process was discovered late last week on Symantec’s “honeypot” computers, or machines that are purposely infected with malware for the purpose of monitoring and studying its behavior. Symantec’s blog post on the finding says the instigating file is called “browse32.exe” and it uninstalls all traces of the malware — including this file — and replaces it with randomly generated characters, effectively blocking any attempt to investigate its presence. The so-called ‘suicide’ code was not successful at removing Flame from Symantec’s computers, and the company determined…

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If you’re looking to get the low-down on the world of the electric automobile industry, CleanTechnica will bring you the latest in news and developments to help you make an informed decision on your transportation needs.

More About: electric cars, environment, features, mashable, Tech, World at Work

Fuji Xerox has showcased its latest e-paper model at SID in Boston. The 5-inch 600 x 800 display adjusts the electric field for each color, swinging them between the two layers of the screen. Instead of a typical color filter, an extra layer of white-colored particles between the visible and invisible layer, offering a blank surface when needed, while magenta and cyan particles are in charge of colors on the prototype. The company’s already working on CMY arrangement to provide the full range of colors on the finished e-paper model and promise a color gamut wider than a newspaper. Hopefully, it will also involve a much thinner bezel.

Prototype color e-paper skips on filter, cranks up vividness originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Jun 2012 10:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home and this little piggy went “wee, wee, wee” all the way down the stairs?

Hamlet the piglet conquered his deathly fear of the stairs in this video, when his owner, PiggyGirl2010 (who posted this video) coaxed him down with a bowl of oatmeal. To no surprise, the video went viral on Facebook because, really, who can resist a classic story of triumph and bravery, and even more so a squishy, snorting piglet?

SEE ALSO: Hilarious Dog Takes Internet by Storm

As opposed to the “ripping-off-the-bandaid” technique, Hamlet opts for the cautious approach to tackling his fear – he paces back and forth on each step, before deli… Continue reading…

More About: animal videos, cute animals, Hamlet the piglet, pigs, trending, viral videos

Dropbox released its 2.1.4 update for Android 4.0 yesterday, bringing with it video streaming and Korean language support. Streaming a video is simple in execution — you just select one within Dropbox and it will begin playing rather than presenting a download prompt. During our brief tests, the video streaming capability supported a variety of file formats, including MP4, M4V, and MKV, and users can still download files by tapping “Export” and then “Save to SD card.” For those lucky Galaxy S III users that get 48GB of extra Dropbox space, or even HTC One users that get a 23GB bonus, this update offers a good alternative to storing relatively large video files locally.

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Reuters is reporting that Intel’s mooted virtual television network has hit the buffers because it can’t beat its cable rivals spending. The company is eyeing up the $100 million TV business with a set-top-box and over-the-top service that would offer smaller, cheaper bundles of channels rather than the hundreds that come with a basic cable subscription. It would leverage its facial recognition technology in the system both by offering precise ratings data to networks and by showing targeted adverts to whoever it can see is watching. The former will surely annoy Nielsen, a player with plenty of its own influence in the industry. Despite hiring a quartet of industry heavyweights to help negotiations, studios are refusing to offer discounts to a new and untried entrant, meaning we may not see the service arriving by that planned November launch date.

Intel’s TV service aims at Nielsen, big cable, might not get here originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Jun 2012 10:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Do you want to learn from the best and network to get ahead? Then make sure to check out the collection of more than 55 events on Mashable’s new Events Board. The business conferences and exhibitions on the board cover a wide range of topics — from tech to marketing to social media — and are held all across the globe and even online. Dynamic and educational, these events are sure to give you the most bang for your buck.

We post new listings frequently, and every week we highlight new events that are at the top of our must-go list. Don’t forget to visit our Events Board for new networking opportunities, meetings and expos in your industry to stay up-to-date on the latest trends.

B… Continue reading…

More About: Events, features, mashable

Wherever there’s a teaser video, full product info is sure to follow. Denon‘s decided to stop being so coy, and got its new SC2900 DJ media player fully out in the open. We pretty much got to see most of what’s on offer, including that 7-inch non-motorized platter, and slew of format-playing options (mp3 / audio CD, USB drives, direct from laptop,) but we didn’t know when, and how much. The answers to those questions? For Europeans, July, and €800 plus tax. That’s about $997 by conversion, but the actual US price will come as and when availability here’s confirmed.

Continue reading Denon SC2900 DJ Media player gets a euro price and summer launch date

Denon SC2900 DJ Media player gets a euro price and summer launch date originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Jun 2012 10:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When Nikon debuted its new flagship digital SLR camera, the D4, earlier this year, it promised to bestow photographers with powers far beyond mortal (read: lower-end) cameras. We got a chance to play with the D4 for a while to see if it made good on that promise.

One of the things a rocket-ship DSLR like the D4 does well is take good photos in low light. You may have read about the super-high ISO ratings that some of these cameras get (ISO is what used to be used to measure light sensitivity of film — a typical rating is about 400), which can capture great low-light pics like this.

Most DSLRs’ ISO rating tops out around 12,800, but on the D4 you… Continue reading…

More About: D4, digital cameras, DSLR, mashable video, Nikon, trending, Video