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Droid Lurches to Life November 06, 2009 
Today is the day of the Droid. The Motorola smartphone touches down today in what's shaping up to be one of the biggest handset launches in recent memory. Of course Verizon is going all-in as far as advertising is concerned, but there's more to the Droid's story than a marketing campaign.
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Chorus Should Sound Great Once More Singers Join In November 05, 2009 
The iTunes App Store became 100,000 applications strong this week, and it took less than a year and a half to get there. Would it surprise you to know that not every last one of those apps is a perfect work of art? Yes, believe it or not, many of the apps that compete for your attention in the App Store are pretty worthless.
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The iPhone's China Syndrome November 04, 2009 
The iPhone went on sale last week in China, and it landed more or less with a thud. Cupertino's carrier partner in that country, China Unicom, announced on Tuesday that only 5,000 customers had purchased the phone thus far. At this rate, the handset may have trouble meeting sales expectations. China Unicom had pledged to sell 1 million iPhones per year.
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Mac OS X May Split With Atom November 03, 2009 
An update from Apple for its OS X 10.6 operating system could cause a lot of grief for tinkerers who have installed Snow Leopard on low-cost netbook computers. The update may cause Snow Leopard to no longer run on Intel's Atom processors. Withdrawing Atom support would prevent device hackers from creating so-called hackintosh netbooks.
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Windows 7 Takes Back Mac Switchers and Other Reasons for Hope November 02, 2009 
Last month was fascinating for me. Not only was Windows 7 launched, but it appeared last week that because so many Mac users were installing Windows 7, some huge enterprise servers crashed. In addition, I got a chance to see Yahoo's new CEO Carol Bartz in action, and was both impressed with her and a little disappointed in the event.
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Song Sift Solves a Problem for Picky Podsters October 29, 2009 
It's been about a decade since the first practical MP3 players started popping up, and 10 years is plenty of time to collect a positively bloated library of digital music. Perhaps you got in at the ground floor with Napster in '99 and loaded up on free tunes before the music industry decided to do something about it. Maybe you remain a proud pirate, Bay or no Bay.
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Lala Plans to Open Music-Streaming Dime Store on iPhone October 28, 2009 
Online music retailer Lala is preparing to launch an iPhone application that its cofounder says paves the way for the end of downloading songs in the MP3 format. The app allows users to buy the right to stream songs from a digital locker forever for just 10 US cents each. The song quality is lower than what Apple's iTunes offers, but "intelligent caching" lets the tracks load and play in seconds.
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Adobe Elements Buffs Up for Mac October 26, 2009 
Mac jocks miffed at Adobe for releasing Windows versions of its Photoshop Elements photo editing and organizing application before getting around to its OS X editions of the software should be pleased with the simultaneous release of the product's new version for both operating systems this month.
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PepsiCo Gets a Little More Buzz Out of 'Score' App October 23, 2009 
PepsiCo has removed the iPhone application that promised to help men "score" with different types of women about a week after it was criticized for stereotyping. The soft drink and snack maker announced its decision on Thursday. The application, called "Amp up before you score" was unavailable for download on iTunes and removed from the brand's site.
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'Rock Band' for iPhone Knows the Words, but the Tone Is Flat October 22, 2009 
When it comes to games, Apple's App Store isn't just a flea market where independent and small-scale developers can earn a few bucks peddling momentary amusements for 99 cents a pop. Giant game makers like EA, Capcom and Ubisoft sometimes set up shop, and when they do, they're not afraid to charge top dollar, as App Store games go.
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GoToMyPC Gets Ready to Go to Your Mac October 19, 2009 
More and more workers require remote access to their personal computers at their offices, and often those office computers are Macs. That trend has induced a major maker of remote access software to tailor one of its offerings for the Applesphere. Citrix Systems is close to releasing GoToMyPC for the Mac, currently in open beta trials.
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Free iPhone Apps Now Free to Charge October 16, 2009 
Apple on Thursday revised its app store policy to let developers include for-pay features in free apps. This could save developers time in the long run, as they will only have to put out one version of their applications, rather than a free version and a paid-for version. In the short term, however, it could cause developers some grief.
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Sidekick Snafu: The Data Saved and the Damage Done October 16, 2009 
T-Mobile's Sidekick users had a pretty rough time this week thanks to a mistake that first looked enormous but eventually was pretty much fixed, though with no small amount of worry and strife in between. An unfortunate series of events caused a major inconvenience for users of the smartphone.
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Photoshop for iPhone: Premium Version, Please October 15, 2009 
It's slowly becoming apparent that cellphone photos need not look awful. Some phone are hitting the market with 8 or more megapixels, approaching the sort of resolution you'd get on a low-cost pocket cam. That's still not nearly professional hardware, but it sure will come out better than the muddy, washed-out tile mosaics you used to get from camera phones.
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Apple Tweaks iPhone 3GS to Lock Out Jailbreakers October 14, 2009 
Apple has begun shipping new units of the iPhone 3GS that reportedly cannot be jailbroken using common methods. These new units have a new boot ROM that apparently can't be touched by the exploit, 24kpwn, from the iPhone Dev Team. The news comes just days after jailbreaking icon George Hotz released his blackra1n jailbreak.
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Critics Soak Pepsi's Pickup Line iPhone App October 14, 2009 
PepsiCo is facing criticism for an iPhone application that promises to help men "score" with two dozen stereotypes of women by giving users pickup lines and a scoreboard to keep track of their conquests. An apology by the company -- which is using the app "Amp Up Before You Score" to market its Amp energy drink -- is igniting more online criticism.
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