360-Days Blog

Palm (PALM) has shipped 100,000 Pre smart phones so far, according to to an estimate by J.P. Morgan analyst Paul Coster.

Coster contends the company sold just over 50,000 units in the first two days. He estimates that the average Sprint (S) store received about 40 units, with 2-5 at the average Radio Shack (RSH) store and 2-4 at the typical Best Buy (BBY). Coster says that about 50,000 more units have shipped since the weekend, with Sprint stores getting about 10-15 units every 2 days. He says Radio Shack inventory has been replenished once, but that Best Buy so far appears not to have received additional phones, a conclusion he concedes is “based on very limited” sampling.

Coster says most of the Sprint stores he checked with are selling phones to customers on a waiting list, with only a few selling units to walk-in customers.

“Though we came away with a generally favorable impression of the sell-in momentum that Palm is currently experiencing, we also detected a lot of uncertainty,” Coster writes. “Sprint stores are being drip-fed devices without much certainty or uniformity regarding timing and quantity.”

Coster’s advice to people who want to buy the phone is to head for the local Radio Shack; he says the stores “seem to have been neglected by eager early adopters.”

Palm today is up 13 cents, or 1%, to $13.56.

Source
http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2009/06/12/palm-100000-pre-units-shipped-so-far-analyst-says/

BEIJING (Reuters) - China will limit the number of messages that a mobile number can send per day to battle rampant spam messages clogging cell phones, state media said on Friday.

Spam messages, largely consisting of real estate offers, ads for English lessons, fake tax receipts and other frauds have grown very quickly in China in recent years. It is not unusual to receive dozens of messages a day, including the odd gun ad.

China's three main mobile network operators, China Telecom, China Mobile Ltd and China Unicom have signed onto an agreement to deal with inter-network spam messages, the Xinhua News Agency said, citing company officials.

One mobile number cannot send more than 200 messages per hour or 1,000 per day on weekdays, according to the agreement.

On holidays, 500 messages per hour and 2,000 per day may originate from one number.

(Reporting by Yu Le and Lucy Hornby; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

Source
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE55B1RU20090612

"The goal of WolframAlpha is to bring high-level mathematics to the masses, by letting users type in problems in plain English and delivering instant results. As a result, some professors say the service poses tough questions for their classroom policies. 'I think this is going to reignite a math war,' said Maria H. Andersen, a mathematics instructor at Muskegon Community College, referring to past debates over the role of graphing calculators in math education. 'Given that there are still pockets of instructors and departments in the US where graphing calculators are still not allowed, some instructors will likely react with resistance (i.e. we still don't change anything) or possibly even with the charge that using WA is cheating.'"

Source
http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/06/12/2058215/Wolfram-Alpha-Rekindles-Campus-Math-Tool-Debate

After showing off Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" at last year's WWDC, Apple is finally ready to ship it out the door this coming September, for a quite reasonable upgrade fee of $29 for Leopard users (as opposed to the regular $129 for larger refreshes). Folks who buy a Leopard machine between now and December can get the upgrade for $10 in shipping. While the added feature list is relatively slim, and there are few surprises between what was confirmed last year and the various leaks from developer previews, Apple's still giving users and developers some fun new tech to play with -- particularly the GPU-exploiting OpenCL, and the Grand Central Dispatch tech for developers to ease application optimization for multi-core processors. Pretty nerdy stuff, but if it makes our Dashboard Sudoku Widgets run faster, we can hardly complain. Other updates to the OS Apple is trotting out at WWDC:

* Apple rewrote the Finder, while keeping it mostly the same on the surface, for a bunch of "little benefits." Tweaks include faster Quick Look previews and Spotlight searches.
* There's built-in Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 support in the OS, including Mail, Calendar and Address Book syncing.
* QuickTime X has a new "modern foundation," HTTP streaming and a whole new look. Users can record and trim video, and upload to sharing sites like MobileMe and YouTube.
* Snow Leopard has half the footprint of Leopard, amounting to 6GB in savings and 45% faster installs.
* New trackpads can handle handwriting recognition now, and there's new text selection "AI." There's also support for wireless Braille accessories (pictured).
* Safari 4 is available for Windows, Leopard and Tiger, but Snow Leopard adds "Crash Resistance," which keeps browser and tabs intact even if a plugin crashes -- user just refreshes the page. 64-bit version does JavaScript 50% faster.
* All core apps are 64-bit, and performance improvements abound. Mail boasts 85% faster message loads and 90% faster loads, while Time Machine has a 50% faster initial backup time.

Update: More Snow Leopard additions and refinements are detailed here. Highlights we've spotted so far include Text Expander-style capabilities in Text Edit and Mail, and three finger and four finger multitouch gesture support for older (pre unibody) MacBooks! [Thanks, Jakob]
Source
http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/08/apple-shipping-snow-leopard-in-september-29-upgrade/

Koh Samui island in Surat Thani is situated in the ever beautiful and gorgeous country Thailand. Ko Samui also known as Koh Samui is gifted with white sandy beaches, beautiful never-ending waters, coconut trees, coral reefs and beautiful natural resources. All this has made Ko Samui a major tourist attraction and the visitors consider it a must visit spot if you plan a holiday with your family. The pleasure of watching the sunrise and sunset, blue waters disappearing in the long lost horizon, enjoying a sun bath on the sandy beaches, a pleasurable body massage on the sea side etc. is quite inexplicable and you can enjoy an unforgettable holiday with your family. Perhaps this is the reason why holiday lovers keep flocking the Ko Samui islands throughout the year.

The island and its people are quite hospitable and so Samui accommodations can be availed very easily. You don't have to wander with all your bags and luggage and your family in order to find a suitable accommodation. Koh Samui accommodation is available at different beaches as well. With the presence of hotels, villas, guest houses and resorts including the very luxurious ones to the low budget ones, Samui accommodation is never a problem. If you want to enjoy each and every moment of your holiday, you can hire a sea side hotel so that you can enjoy the picturesque view of the sea whenever you wish to. Online booking for the Koh Samui accommodation is the most convenient and recommended way so that you just don't waste even a single moment looking for hotels. holiday rental accommodation with attractive packages is also available in Koh Samui and it is affordable as well.

If you think of acquiring a property in Koh Samui, it is not at all a bad idea. To your great surprise, many Samui property holders are the visitors who like the place so much that they keep coming here every vacation. Isn't it so fascinating? People visit this place and some of them find it so beautiful and marvelous that they end up buying their own property in Koh Samui with the wish to keep visiting the island for the rest of their lives. You never know, you also like the place so much that you acquire a Samui property on one such trip.

Source
http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=1666942