Here’s a situation: you create a Facebook account. You fall in love with said account. You’re on it all day, every single day. And then, your computer explodes. You go to login on a new machine, and you realize that your minty fresh browser has no recollection of your Facebook password. At this point, you’re probably pondering the point of taking another breath. Evidently, Facebook understands your dilemma, and in the coming weeks, it’ll be testing out a new password recovery system for those who can’t / won’t take advantage of the existing methods. Christened “Trusted Friends,” the feature will allow a user to select between three and five pals that they’re confident will help out in dire times. Then, should you lose your password, Facebook can send recovery codes to that gang, and they can hand ‘em over to you in order to unlock things. According to Facebook, it’s akin to “giving a house key to your friends when you go on vacation.” The only concern? Friends aren’t friends forever, and even BFFs can morph into WEEs given the right circumstances. Choose wisely, Facebookers.

SOURCE via Facebook

Last we saw of C3 Technologies’ 3D mapping software it was making an appearance on Sony Ericsson’s X10, but if 9to5Mac turns out to be right, its next stop could be the iPhone. According to the publication, Cupertino recently scooped up the Saab spin-off and C3 execs have since been working closely with the iOS division. Earlier this year, Apple posted job listings, looking for developers to “radically improve how people interact with maps and location-based services.” On a related note, the outfit previously acquired Poly9, a web-based mapping company. So is the fruity one looking to up its street (navigation) cred? Is it finally ready to give Google Maps the boot? We’ll just have to wait and see.

SOURCE via 9to5mac

Nokia’s effort to recover from a burning platform surfaced yesterday in the form of the Lumia 800 and 710 Windows Phone devices. Not everyone was impressed by the device, but the Lumia will be remembered as a the first smartphone that makes the list.

There are very few electronics companies that have an explicit talent for coming up with great product names. Two exceptions would be Intel’s Pentium and Sony’s Walkman. However, electronics buyers usually have to contend with cryptic number sequences that follow product names,which are more a pain in the neck for the consumer than a way to identify and characterize a certain product. Nokia’s product line, for example, has such appealing devices as the N8-00, the E7-00, the C6-01, and the C5-03. Admittedly, there’s an intended technical structure behind those numbers, but I would argue that it’s not the best way to market a product to consumers. A simple “iPhone” brand works much better.

Apple somehow changed the way the industry thinks about product names with the iPod. It took a while for its rivals to realize that barcode-like product names don’t really work. As a result, we have devices such as Microsoft’s Zune, which made those products much more identifiable and memorable (even if the Zune is dead now). Nokia must have had the same thought: a spicy, phonetically appealing product name with a slightly artistic touch. Lumia was the winner in Nokia’s smartphone naming contest and was – this is a wild guess – probably chosen as it relates to the Latin word lumen, which can be used for lantern, or lamp, but most often refers to light.

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Less than 2 weeks after the infamous services outages affecting Blackberry users worldwide, Canada’s Research In Motion have a new reason to reach for the Tums. On October 26, a class-action lawsuit was filed in a Quebec superior court by the Consumer Law Group, on behalf customers, estimated to be close to 35 million, who were affected by the outage between October 11 and 14th, 2011. The suit focuses specifically on “RIM’s failure to take action to either directly compensate BlackBerry users or to indirectly compensate BlackBerry users by arranging for wireless service providers to refunds their customers and to take full responsibility for these damages.”

Though the legal basis for the suit is sure to be decided in the coming days, it’s important to remember that RIM founder and co-CEO Mike Lazaridis did apologize for the outage in a somewhat emotional video posted October 13 to RIM’s youtube page. Regarding their commitment to providing reliable, worldwide communication in real time, “We did not deliver on that goal this week,” he admitted. “Not even close.”

Since then, free tech support and access to several premium apps have been offered, however at present, no further compensation has been made available. Whether or not RIM decides to offer additional compensation will surely affect the suit, but whatever happens, they can at least rest assured they haven’t been as universally humiliated as Sony Computer Entertainment.

SOURCE via Fox

The iPhone 4S (or iPhone 5, if you believe the analyst) may be widely considered to be the last product on which Jobs actively worked. There is speculation that Jobs left behind possibly four years’ worth of new Apple products. As important as Jobs was for Apple, the current CEO, Tim Cook, will have to transition the company into its next era to create a fresh legacy that will sustain the present pace. If you were Cook, which products would you choose?

I can still remember Steve Jobs’ claims last year that 2011 would be an even bigger year than 2010 for Apple. Surely it has been a more dramatic year than any previous ones for the company, but not in the sense many of us would have expected. What we anticipated was a product expansion that would go beyond the Mac, iPhone or iPad, which has not occurred. The expectations in Tim Cook will continue to grow next year. It will be interesting to see if he will attempt to step out of the shadow of Jobs’ heritage and avoid the situation that we are now watching at Microsoft. There, Steve Ballmer is mainly considered a business manager, whereas Bill Gates was the visionary who created the company.

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Thursday HP finally ended the drama over its PC division (aka Personal Systems Group or PSG) which began during the summer with the announcement of a possible spin-off or outright sale. According to the company, the unit will remain as part of the HP collective — it won’t be sold or spun-off into a separate company.

“HP objectively evaluated the strategic, financial and operational impact of spinning off PSG. It’s clear after our analysis that keeping PSG within HP is right for customers and partners, right for shareholders, and right for employees,” said Meg Whitman, HP president and chief executive officer. “HP is committed to PSG, and together we are stronger.”

Many in the industry are likely breathing a sigh of relief, especially those who were afraid that HP’s withdrawal would send PC components up in price. Even Intel CEO Paul Otellini was blown away with the initial news, admittedly asking himself “what was he thinking?” when HP’s former CEO Leo Apotheker made the announcement.

“I was stunned,” Otellini said in an interview with FOX News. “I hope that they will decide to stay in the business. To leave consumer digital electronics, to me, would be a very strange decision to make when your whole business model is tied up into imaging and those kinds of things.”

But now HP is seemingly staying the course with its PC business, bringing balance back to the PC sector. “As part of HP, PSG will continue to give customers and partners the advantages of product innovation and global scale across the industry’s broadest portfolio of PCs, workstations and more,” said Todd Bradley, executive vice president, Personal Systems Group, HP. “We intend to make the leading PC business in the world even better.”

HP said that part of its strategic review revealed the depth of its PSG integration that has occurred across key operations such as supply chain, IT and procurement. The review also detailed the significant extent to which PSG contributes to HP’s solutions portfolio and overall brand value. It also showed that the cost to recreate these in a standalone company outweighed any benefits of separation.

“The outcome of this exercise reaffirms HP’s model and the value for its customers and shareholders,” the company said. “PSG is a key component of HP’s strategy to deliver higher value, lasting relationships with consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and enterprise customers. The HP board of directors is confident that PSG can drive profitable growth as part of the larger entity and accelerate solutions from other parts of HP’s business.”

More information about the decision is available at www.hp.com/investor/PSG-Decision.

According to SMU, the heat resources are estimated to be capable of producing about 2,980,295 MW of power, roughly ten times the installed capacity of U.S. coal power plants today. The researchers believe that there is enough geothermal energy to justify commercial energy production using enhanced geothermal systems (EGS). The released map (Google Earth KML File) suggests there is accessible heat of up to 250 degrees Celsius (482 degrees Fahrenheit) in vast areas of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, and Oregon (in a depth of 6.5 km, whereas a depth of 6.5 km to 10 km is considered as “theoretical potential”).

SMU said that a reliable production of clean energy is possible with temperatures of at least 100 degrees Celsius or 212 degrees Fahrenheit. The published data is based on close to 35,000 data sites, but SMU researchers believe they will get even better results down the road. “This assessment of geothermal potential will only improve with time,” said David Blackwell, professor of geophysics, at SMU. “Our study assumes that we tap only a small fraction of the available stored heat in the Earth’s crust, and our capabilities to capture that heat are expected to grow substantially as we improve upon the energy conversion and exploitation factors through technological advances and improved techniques.”

Google sponsored the study with a grant in the amount of $489,521.

SOURCE via SMU