Monday morning links serving: The September 6th edition
-Back to the future: two years of Google Chrome Today, we’re releasing a new stable version of Chrome that is even faster and streamlined. Chrome is now three times faster than it was two years ago on JavaScript performance.
-Another 10 Coolest Macbook Cover Designs This set of decals cleverly make use of the prominent Apple logos found on each Macbook as the centerpieces of art.
-Google will open source Google Wave Contrary to popular belief, Google Wave is not quite dead.
-Top 10 Fitness Tips and Tools You can do a lot with your mind and a computer, but a healthy and honed body will get you even out of life (if only of it). Here are our favorite tips and tools for staying in shape.
-5 Free Browser-Based P2P File Sharing Sites With No Size Limits When I began to search the Internet for file sharing sites, I wasn’t sure what the easiest solution would be. What I found out was that there are quite a few file-sending options, but I had criteria.
Related posts:Monday Morning Links Serving: The August 6th editionMonday Morning Links Serving: The September 22nd EditionMonday morning links serving: The May 25th edition
94% Chinese netizen claim affected by micro-blog
A survey showed that 94.3% of Chinese internet users confirm micro-blogging is changing their life, and 70% of the respondents said that they would double check the information on micro-blogs everyday. They always kept a close eye on their updates and even some main stream media said micro-blog is almost like a news agency. The survey collected information from 3,282 people, than 90% of them are younger than 40 years old… >>
The Case for Subsidized Femtocells
Tier-one carriers in the U.S. have built their businesses on one primary model: Subsidize handsets substantially to entice users to sign long-term contracts for voice and data service. As I discuss in my weekly column over at GigaOM Pro, that’s a model that should be also be used for consumer femtocells, which carriers should subsidize to drive up monthly revenues.
Sprint recently began giving away EVDO femtocells on a case-by-case basis to users complaining about coverage in their homes. Customers with coverage issues can get an Airave for no upfront cost and no monthly charge; all the voice, data and messaging use via the device is considered part of their monthly rate plans.
Compare that to Verizon Wireless’s Network Extender, which will set you back $150 even after a mail-in rebate. Even worse is AT&T’s 3G MicroCell, which costs $150 in addition to a $20 monthly charge for unlimited voice and data usage.
Femtocells enable carriers to ramp up usage while offloading traffic. By providing a better signal, femtocells pave the way for increased usage from customers with connectivity problems. That increased usage results in higher ARPU (average revenue per user), especially for carriers who — like AT&T — no longer support all-you-can-eat plans. Indeed, AT&T’s new plans are an ideal tool for monetizing femtocells, because increased usage results directly in increased monthly revenues. And the improved reception could also be enough to entice some users with in-home coverage problems to cut the cord and use the mobile exclusively.
Expectations for the femtocell market are huge, especially in the U.S. MarketsandMarkets predicts the American femtocell market will generate some $4.6 billion by 2014, seeing an estimated CAGR of 82.6 percent and accounting for nearly 41 percent of worldwide revenues by the time. For the consumer market to take off, carriers will need to take the hit on the front end and be satisfied with lucrative recurring monthly revenues.
Read the full post here.
Image courtesy Flickr user Elsie esq.
News: Apple’s 2010 Music Event: The Big Picture Summary
Apple’s 2010 Music Event is over, and as expected, it brought new iPod models, a new Apple TV, and a new version of iTunes—plus information on iOS versions 4.1 and 4.2. Here’s a quick summary of the key announcements, with a convenient gallery of photographs. Fourth-Generation iPod shuffle: $49 (2GB). After the huge flop of the third-generation shuffle, Apple has switched the body completely, with a new design that preserves all…
Apple released a Mac OS X security update today that patches a critical PDF vulnerability and a handful of other security issues. Security Update 2010-005 supplies a fix that addresses a “heap buffer overflow” that exists in CoreGraphics and the way it handles PDF files. The vulnerability could have allowed the “unexpected application termination of 
I’m sure there are always interesting things to see on commuter trains in Sydney, Australia. But a Samsung Galaxy Tab? That’s a rare spot indeed.
This extract from Tristan Donovan's comprehensive history of the game industry covers the early '90s tumult in the U.S. caused by violent games — with Senator Joe Lieberman going after Mortal Kombat and Night Trap.
A happy, sweaty Friday to you all! This week we were meant to see the final release of 3.6.4, the minor release that 'crash proofs' Firefox. Instead, we have a release candidate — the final release will probably come later in the month (along with the first beta of Firefox 4.0!)