A quick gander at T-Mobile’s official support forums suggests that the carrier’s prepaid customers have been in a world of hurt for the past few days — or the ones that use data, at least. The problem seems to be that visiting the page where you top up on $1.49 Web DayPasses for daily web access produced one of a number of errors, which effectively means that your phone has been reduced to a calling and texting machine… and let’s be honest: we’re only in this for the data, right? Calls to customer service have apparently rooted out that the Thanksgiving holiday accounted for part of the delay in getting the issue fixed, but as far as we know, it’s still not totally back to normal — so let us know what you’re seeing in comments.

[Thanks, Edward]

T-Mobile prepaid account management on the fritz for the past week, Web DayPasses hard to buy originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Tue, 30 Nov 2010 11:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A quick gander at T-Mobile’s official support forums suggests that the carrier’s prepaid customers have been in a world of hurt for the past few days — or the ones that use data, at least. The problem seems to be that visiting the page where you top up on $1.49 Web DayPasses for daily web access produced one of a number of errors, which effectively means that your phone has been reduced to a calling and texting machine… and let’s be honest: we’re only in this for the data, right? Calls to customer service have apparently rooted out that the Thanksgiving holiday accounted for part of the delay in getting the issue fixed, but as far as we know, it’s still not totally back to normal — so let us know what you’re seeing in comments.

[Thanks, Edward]

T-Mobile prepaid account management on the fritz for the past week, Web DayPasses hard to buy originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Tue, 30 Nov 2010 11:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

While Microsoft may have the momentum on their side, Sony is definitely not showing any signs of stepping out of the motion-based gaming market any time soon. Especially with the number of PlayStation Move units the company sold since its release, back in September. While Microsoft’s Kinect’s numbers may be impressive, Sony’s are, too.

However, unlike those initial sales figures we saw back in the middle of October, which just focused on Europe and the United States, these new numbers from Sony are on the global side. It factors in the number of Move units sold worldwide, and it looks like Sony is satisfied with the results. According to the company, they managed to move 4.1 million units. That boils down to just under one Move unit sold for every PlayStation 3 console out there.

With numbers like this, and seeing just as much strength from Kinect’s sales figues, it wouldn’t be a surprise to hear that game developers will now take the leap into motion gaming, and start cranking out titles.

[via Kotaku]

Apple’s wireless QWERTY keyboard is a useful way of cutting the cord on your desktop, but it’s not great for those doing frequent numerical entry. LMP appear to be addressing that shortcoming with their Keypad add-on, spotted clearing the FCC recently, a 28-key Bluetooth numeric keypad that snaps onto the side of the regular Apple ‘board.

One interesting touch is that the LMP Keypad has a mechanical push-through bar that controls the Apple keyboard’s power button. Press the big power button on the LMP, and it pushes through to trigger the full keyboard; the keypad itself is turned on and off with the smaller button at the side.

Power is via two AA batteries, and there are navigation shortcuts and extra function keys as well. No word on pricing or availability at this stage, but we’re guessing it’ll show up relatively soon.

[via Geeky-Gadgets and via Wireless Goodness]

Google is being investigated by the European Commission over allegations of antitrust violations, amid suggestions that the search giant has “abused a dominant market position” by promoting results from its own services ahead of those from rival companies. Competing search engines have accused Google of suppressing unpaid results from their services in favor of its own; Google, meanwhile, has denied any wrongdoing and says that the results it offers are primarily about giving the user what they are looking for, as quickly as possible.

“The Commission will investigate whether Google has abused a dominant market position in online search by allegedly lowering the ranking of unpaid search results of competing services which are specialised in providing users with specific online content such as price comparisons (so-called vertical search services) and by according preferential placement to the results of its own vertical search services in order to shut out competing services.” EU statement

However, Google also says that it will “continue to work closely with the Commission” to answer any questions outstanding. For its part, the Commission has highlighted that “initiation of proceedings does not imply that the commission has proof of any infringements,” and pointed out that there is no set timescale for this sort of investigation, only that it will be continued “as a matter of priority.”

Google maintains that it has “always distinguished advertising content from our organic search results” but recognizes that “given our success and the disruptive nature of our business, it’s entirely understandable that we’ve caused unease among other companies and caught the attention of regulators.” Still, it’s obvious that the company blames sour grapes from rivals for much of that attention: “not every website can come out on top, or even appear on the first page of our results, so there will almost always be website owners who are unhappy about their rankings” they suggest.

Press Release:

Antitrust: Commission probes allegations of antitrust violations by Google

The European Commission has decided to open an antitrust investigation into allegations that Google Inc. has abused a dominant position in online search, in violation of European Union rules (Article 102 TFEU). The opening of formal proceedings follows complaints by search service providers about unfavourable treatment of their services in Google’s unpaid and sponsored search results coupled with an alleged preferential placement of Google’s own services. This initiation of proceedings does not imply that the Commission has proof of any infringements. It only signifies that the Commission will conduct an in-depth investigation of the case as a matter of priority.

Google’s internet search engine provides for two types of results when people are searching for information. These are unpaid search results, which are sometimes also referred to as “natural”, “organic” or “algorithmic” search results, and third party advertisements shown at the top and at the right hand side of Google’s search results page (so-called paid search results or sponsored links).

The Commission will investigate whether Google has abused a dominant market position in online search by allegedly lowering the ranking of unpaid search results of competing services which are specialised in providing users with specific online content such as price comparisons (so-called vertical search services) and by according preferential placement to the results of its own vertical search services in order to shut out competing services. The Commission will also look into allegations that Google lowered the ‘Quality Score’ for sponsored links of competing vertical search services. The Quality Score is one of the factors that determine the price paid to Google by advertisers.1

The Commission’s probe will additionally focus on allegations that Google imposes exclusivity obligations on advertising partners, preventing them from placing certain types of competing ads on their web sites, as well as on computer and software vendors, with the aim of shutting out competing search tools. Finally, it will investigate suspected restrictions on the portability of online advertising campaign data to competing online advertising platforms2.

What is the legal base for the decision?
The legal base of this procedural step is Article 11(6) of Council Regulation No 1/2003 and article 2(1) of Commission Regulation No 773/2004.

Article 11(6) of Regulation No 1/2003 provides that the initiation of proceedings relieves the competition authorities of the Member States of their authority to apply the competition rules laid down in Articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty.

Article 2 of Regulation No 773/2004 provides that the Commission can initiate proceedings with a view to adopting at a later stage a decision on substance according to Articles 7-10 of Regulation No 1/2003.

The Commission has informed the company about this decision. The Competition Authorities of the Member States have also been informed.

There is no legal deadline to complete inquiries into anticompetitive conduct. Their duration depends on a number of factors, including the complexity of each case and the extent to which the undertakings concerned co-operate with the Commission.

1 :

The Quality Score influences the likelihood of an ad to be displayed by Google and its ranking. If two advertisers are using the same key words, the site which has a lower Quality Score will have to offer a higher price to rank at the same place.

2 :

An online advertising platform is a virtual marketplace that brings together advertisers and publishers offering advertising space on the internet.

You sassafrass you, NOOKcolor! Last night we spoke about how NOOKcolor had been rooted and presented to you the final chapter in our “A Week With” reviews of that device, but what’s this?! I snuck another one in on ya! A Week with NOOKcolor: The Missing Link – Viewing Manually Loaded Books and What a Root Means for the Future. Then there’s news about how NOOKcolor saved B&N’s butt financially this year, and the iPad responds with a magazine – it’s got TRON on it! Maybe not a direct response, and I know it’s released by Richard Branson, but, you know, but I don’t think iPad is worried about the B&N competition. Then we’ve got some Farmville news and some NASA news about what might be aliens – this expressing the range of information we present here at the R3 Media Network. ALL THIS AND MORE on the SlashGear Morning Wrap-up!

R3 Media Network

SlashPhone
HTC Merge Accessories Spotted in Wild
AT&T Announces Olympus Availabile December/January Via Facebook
BlackBerry Empathy Concept Made to Detect its Users Mood
Microsoft Retail Stores Offer Windows Phone 7 Devices For Free With Contract

Android Community
University of Missouri to offer goMizzou app on Android
Angry Birds on Android Downloads 7M copies
LG P990 Star smartphone surfaces with new UI pics
DROID 2 Global hits Wirefly for just $80
HTC considering E Ink and 3D displays/imaging for future devices?
Show off your Allegiance to the almighty Android in Call of Duty: Black Ops [LOLS]
AT&T and T-Mobile to possibly get Acer Liquid Metal?
NOOKcolor Rooted! [HOLY CRAP]
New LG Star Pictures and Details Leaked
Samsung GT-i9200 snapshots caught on Picasa

SlashGear
Barnes & Noble finances released: saved by NOOK
A Week with NOOKcolor: The Missing Link – Viewing Manually Loaded Books and What a Root Means for the Future [FEATURED]
FarmVille credit & exclusive items added to American Express reward scheme
Verizon 4G LTE event on December 1 will detail US roll-out
Windows Phone 7 update “took 3 months to do what Apple did in 3 years” tips developer
Google Earth 6 adds full Street View, 3D trees & more [Video] [MAP AS BIG AS WHATS MAPPED]
LG Optimus 7 uses NAND flash for storage
Project iPad magazine arrives in App Store
NASA holding press conference Thursday, has it found extraterrestrial life? [NEATO]
Linutop 3 fanless Atom-powered PC surfaces
Microsoft takes i4i case to Supreme Court
135k Windows Phone 7 sales tip Facebook stat watchers
Microsoft Kinect sells 2.5 million units in 25 days
Buy.com blows up on Cyber Monday
BlueAnt unveils new Q2 Platinum Bluetooth headset
HTC E Ink plus 3D displays & cameras in consideration tips job spec
SiliconPower unveils speedy E20 SSD
Comcast accused of internet abuse in latest net neutrality spat [NET NEUTRALITY NOW!]
Sanyo Pedal Juice box gives guitarists staying-power
High-Speed 500MB/sec CompactFlash next-gen standard proposed by Sony, Nikon & SanDisk
iPad goes free in Japan with Softbank deal
Google social networking drive delayed until Spring 2011?
Apple block PhotoFast MacBook Air SSD kit production?
Dell Vostro V130 adds HDMI & Hyperbaric Cooling, keeps ultraportable style
LG Star leaks, blows benchmarking out the water with Tegra 2

To see more wrap-up posts, follow the following tags: [The Daily Slash] or [SlashGear Morning Wrap-up]

Photos seemingly snapped by Samsung’s as-yet unannounced GT-i9200 Android smartphone have been spotted on online gallery Picasa, though the handset itself is keeping on the wrong side of the lens for our liking. According to previous rumors, the GT-i9200 is Samsung’s dual-core successor to the Galaxy S, tipped for release in early 2011.

Hardware specifications are all but unknown, and it doesn’t seem like we’ll be able to calculate the camera resolution from any of these leaky shots. They appear to have been uploaded as part of media transfer tests, and are 4-megapixel resolution at the most.

[via Android Community and via Samsung Hub]

American Express has announced a new partnership with online gaming company Zynga, which will allow credit card users to swap their membership reward points for FarmVille points, exclusive items or credit in other online games. 100 membership points gets you a dollar’s worth of in-game credit; however there are also “exclusive” virtual items, including a dashing purple cow for 540 points, which can only be secured via American Express.

It’s a sign, perhaps, that online gaming is transitioning very much to the mainstream, with in-game rewards in titles like FarmVille and Cafe World considered as valuable as airline discounts, hotel savings and even straightforward payments on Amazon and other sites. American Express gives you one point per dollar you spend, so you’ll need to splash out $540 if you want that special cow.

[via TechCrunch]

By Andrew Liszewski

Office music politics always ends up being either a dictatorship, whether ruled by a local radio station or that guy with the really nice speakers, or a collection of independent states where everyone simply wears headphones and listens to what they want. Neither seem that beneficial to fostering a teamwork mentality, so BreakfastNY created the Office Music Democratizer which gives everyone a vote regarding what they do or don’t like when it comes to music.

Their solution is a light up set of buttons on the wall that allows anyone in the office to either like or dislike the song currently being played by LastFM or Pandora. Hitting the like button increases the song’s rating, while hitting the dislike button immediately causes it to jump to the next track. I can still see this solution as being problematic as haters will readily jump up to skip the current song, but since everyone in the office has the same powers, hopefully it will indeed lead to some manner of democracy among the people.

[ BreakfastNY - Office Music Democratizer ] VIA [ swissmiss ]

Barnes & Noble has announced its latest quarterly financial results, and the retailer has its digital arm to thank for its 1-percent year-on-year sales growth. According to the results, online sales – including NOOK and ebooks – increased 59-percent over last year, whereas in-store sales decreased by 3-percent. B&N now reckons it has around 20-percent of the ebook market.

The popularity of digital devices and content – together with other recently expanded departments, such as Toys & Games which saw a 42-percent sales increase – has left Barnes & Noble confident about predicting $170m to $205m EBITDA for the full year. As for talk of selling the company, B&N’s special committee is still looking into the possibility and “meeting with both strategic and financial institutions.”

Press Release:

Barnes & Noble Reports Fiscal 2011 Second Quarter Financial Results
Barnes & Noble.com Comparable Sales Increase 59% – Driven By Digital Initiatives

Barnes & Noble Launches NOOKcolor™ to Critical Acclaim

Holiday Sales Off to a Strong Start

New York, NY (November 30, 2010) – Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller, today reported sales and earnings for its fiscal 2011 second quarter ended October 30, 2010.

SECOND QUARTER RESULTS

Total sales for the second quarter were $1.9 billion, including sales of Barnes & Noble College Booksellers (“College”) of $798 million. Excluding College, total sales increased 1% over the prior year period. Comparable sales at Barnes & Noble.com increased 59% driven by increases in core products and sales of digital devices and digital content. Barnes & Noble comparable store sales decreased by 3.3% and College’s comparable store sales decreased by 1.5%.

The expansion of the Toys & Games department at Barnes & Noble stores produced a 42% sales increase for the department during the second quarter. In the third quarter, the company began testing additional concepts, including an expanded children’s offering and digital and electronics accessories, to drive further sales increases in 2011.

For the second quarter, the company reported earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of $46 million. The consolidated second quarter net loss was $12.6 million, or $0.22 per share, in-line with previously issued guidance of earnings of $0.05 per share to a loss of $0.25 per share.

As previously announced, the company continued to invest heavily in digital initiatives including: software and cloud services development costs; expenses relating to NOOKcolor; the addition of hundreds of thousands of titles to its digital catalog including a subscription management platform for digital newspapers and magazines; creating interactive proprietary content for children’s books; developing applications to serve multiple reading and smartphone devices – including iPad®, iPhone®, Android™ and BlackBerry®; and the rollout of NOOK Boutiques in Barnes & Noble retail stores.

The additional investments are expected to continue and peak during the second half of the year, and then increase moderately in the years ahead. Payoff for these expenses is estimated to begin to appear in the third quarter, when NOOKcolor is expected to be one of the world’s most sought after eReaders, and in the third and fourth quarters, when NOOKcolor owners will begin downloading digital content, including books and magazines.

BARNES & NOBLE LAUNCHES NOOKcolor

At the end of the second quarter, Barnes & Noble launched NOOKcolor, the first Reader’s Tablet that enables customers to purchase interactive digital content on a full color touchscreen. Concurrent with the introduction of NOOKcolor, the company introduced NOOKnewsstand™ and NOOKkids™, enabling customers to access periodicals, magazines, and interactive children’s books. Additional device features include web browsing, the ability to listen to music and much more.

NOOKcolor has received widespread critical acclaim from many technology publications, including The Wall Street Journal, which called the product “a winner.” Orders for NOOKcolor significantly exceeded the company’s expectations, and since going on sale on November 16, 2010, it has become the single bestselling product at Barnes & Noble.

“Since launching our eBookstore in the second half of last year, Barnes & Noble has quickly captured approximately 20% of the exploding eBook market. We have plans to grow our share well beyond 20%, and the early success of NOOKcolor is encouraging,” said William Lynch, chief executive officer of Barnes & Noble, Inc. “Selling digital content is becoming a big business for us that we expect to grow at exciting rates. Based upon the double-digit comparable store sales achieved over the past weekend, we are further convinced that eReaders and accessories will be a key holiday gift item and driver of holiday sales this year, leading to accelerating eContent sales in the quarters and years ahead. We’re continuing to invest in this opportunity to build the most expansive catalog of digital content available for sale, the best reading software on the market, and devices that deliver the most innovative digital reading experiences.”

GUIDANCE

Barnes & Noble.com’s comparable sales are expected to increase by approximately 75% for both the third quarter and the full year. The company believes these sales increases will be driven primarily by growing sales in core products and the exploding digital content business. By fiscal year end, the company expects that digital content sales will achieve a $400 million full-year run-rate.

Barnes & Noble comparable store sales are expected to increase between 5% and 7% for the third quarter, and to be in a range of flat to 3% for the full year. Increases in sales will be largely driven by sales of NOOK™ devices and accessories, and by increases in children’s products and other non-book merchandise.

During the three-day post-Thanksgiving weekend, the company experienced a strong comparable store sales increase of 17.2% at Barnes & Noble stores and a comparable sales increase of 105.7% online.

College’s comparable store sales are expected to be in a range of flat to a decrease of 2% for the third quarter and the full year.

The company expects to achieve EBITDA of approximately $160 to $190 million and $170 million to $205 million, for the third quarter and the full year, respectively. Third quarter earnings per share are expected to be in a range of $0.90 to $1.20. Full-year fiscal 2011 losses per share are expected to be in a range of $0.75 to $1.15.

BARNES & NOBLE DECLARES QUARTERLY DIVIDEND

The company’s Board of Directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.25 per share payable on December 31, 2010 to stockholders of record on December 10, 2010. At the end of the second quarter, the company had borrowings of approximately $377 million under its $1 billion revolving credit facility. The company’s financial position remains strong and the revolving credit facility provides ample room for the company to fund its strategic investments.

UPDATE ON STRATEGIC ALTERNATIVE PROCESS

As previously announced on August 3, 2010, Barnes & Noble’s Board of Directors has created a Special Committee to review strategic alternatives, including a possible sale of the company. This review process is currently ongoing and the company is meeting with both strategic and financial institutions.

There can be no assurance that the review of strategic alternatives will result in a sale of the company or in any other transaction. There is no timetable for the review, and the company does not intend to comment further regarding the evaluation of strategic alternatives, until a specific transaction is recommended by the Special Committee or the process is concluded.

CONFERENCE CALL

A conference call with Barnes & Noble, Inc.’s senior management will be webcast beginning at 10:00 A.M. ET on Tuesday, November 30, 2010, and is accessible at www.barnesandnobleinc.com/webcasts.

Barnes & Noble, Inc. will report holiday sales on or about January 6, 2011.