Continue reading Patch 5.3: Hotfixes for May 22

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Patch 5.3: Hotfixes for May 22 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 22 May 2013 22:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’re still a few years away from the self-opening home front door of the Jetsons. But that’s okay — we’re making progress. A few weeks ago we told you about Unikey and Kwikset’s Kevo, a keyless entry system for your own front door. Now the fine folks at Engadget have had a chance to work with the system hands on, and they seem to be impressed.

The system uses the iPhone’s Bluetooth LE to connect with the smartlock. Simply walk up to your front door with your phone in your pocket, tap the lock, and turn the knob. Users and security are handled via iPhone and desktop apps that allow you to share keys with family and friends as administrative, normal or scheduled users.

Having someone house sit for you? Register their iPhone with the house for the week and never worry about them forgetting to return your key. Having family come into town to visit? No need to worry about having enough house keys to go around. You can even set on-off access in case someone needs to come by, but only once.

At the moment the system will only support the iPhone; Android and BlackBerry 10 support is on the way. Kevo is expected to go on sale soon. Head over to Engadget for their complete run down of the system, or check out the video below. Unikey is currently taking emails at their website for people interested in pre-ordering when the lock becomes available.

Engadget takes Unikey’s iPhone assisted keyless entry for a spin originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 22 May 2013 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Amid security concerns over the cross-border takeover of Sprint Nextel by Softbank, the Tokyo-based company has agreed to give the U.S. federal government the right to approve a director it will nominate to Sprint’s board.

According to a report by the Wall Street Journal (spotted first by The Verge), the director, who will be one of 10 on the board, will be in charge of overseeing national security issues. He will ensure that Sprint complies with the agreement on network security that it is negotiating with federal agencies.

On top of that, the U.S. government is also said to be seeking more concessions – including the right to oversee some of Sprint’s equipment purchases and a request to remove Chinese equipment from a Sprint affiliate’s network.

The US government harbours concerns that a takeover by a foreign company could open the door to security issues via intrusion into its telecommunications networks, and is especially worried that Chinese companies such as Huawei and ZTE could provide telecom equipment that may threaten its safety.

Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son had earlier told US House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers that he would remove Huawei equipment in use by the affiliate, Clearwire Corp, the publication said. The step will reportedly cost up to $1 billion.

Sprint is being courted by both Softbank and American satellite-TV provider DISH. Sprint last month said it had received a waiver from Softbank to start preliminary talks with DISH regarding it’s $25.5 billion bid.

Image Credit: Yoshikazu Tsuno via AFP/Getty Images

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As the global PC market continues to spiral downwards, Lenovo, the world’s second-largest PC maker after HP, has reported solid earnings for its fourth fiscal quarter and full-year ended March 31, 2013.

The Chinese multinational is in fact boasting that, “despite a challenging macro-economic environment and ongoing PC industry transformation”, it has reached a record 15.5 percent PC market share for the full year.

All in all, it has shipped 52.4 million PCs during the year.

That has translated in record annual sales of $34 billion for the fiscal year, and $635 million in income after taxes (up 34 percent year-over-year).

It also reported an estimate-beating 90 percent rise in quarterly profit.

Notably, the company says in a statement that it will “enhance the profitability” of its core PC business but look to smart devices (tablets and smartphones) and enterprise hardware for future growth.

Yang Yuanqing, Lenovo Chairman and CEO, notes:

“Not only were we the fastest growing among all major PC players, with record market share, revenue and profitability, more importantly, our smartphone and tablet businesses saw dramatic growth.

In fact, smartphone shipments were 3.7 times greater than last year globally and we are now number two in the China smartphone market. This has laid a solid foundation for the successful transformation of Lenovo into a PC Plus leader.”

Also read:

As expected, Dell reports miserable $0.21 per share profit on revenue of $14.1B in Q1

Hewlett-Packard misses street on low PC sales with Q2 revenue of $27.6B and $0.87 EPS

Image credit: DIBYANGSHU SARKAR for AFP / Getty Images

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Google on Wednesday announced that Raytown, Missouri will receive the company’s Fiber Internet service. Just like for the last few expansions, Google says it doesn’t have an estimate for when the service will be available in the city, merely noting it “will be awhile before we can hook up Raytown residents.”

Before it can bring Fiber to Raytown, Google needs to plan, engineer, and build the necessary infrastructure. Today’s news is merely confirmation for the city’s citizens that they will one day get access to significantly faster Internet: when exactly that will happen is unknown, and there is definitely months of work still ahead.

The Raytown Board of Aldermen yesterday held a meeting to finalize the Google Fiber agreement, among other discussions. The city council meeting had the following section on its agenda (PDF):

SECOND Reading: Bill No. 6312-13, Section V-A. AN ORDINANCE AUTHORIZING AND
APPROVING A NETWORK COOPERATION & SERVICE AGREEMENT AND RELATED
AGREEMENTS WITH GOOGLE FIBER Missouri, LLC. Point of Contact: Tom Cole, Economic
Development Administrator.

After Raytown voted to bring the service to its community, Google made the announcement. This month alone, Fiber has been announced to be coming to Shawnee, Grandview, and Gladstone.

What all of these cities have in common is that they can get the technology rather easily thanks to their close proximity to Kansas City, the very first Fiber city. Raytown is located just south east of Kansas City:

Google first announced Fiber was coming to Kansas City in July 2012. The company was quiet regarding other locations for Missourinths, but as of late there have been a slew of announcements, and today’s brings the total to 10, in addition to Kansas City, Kansas: Kansas City, Missouri; Kansas City North, Missouri; Kansas City South, Missouri; Westwood, Kansas; Westwood Hills, Kansas; Mission Woods, Kansas; Olathe, Kansas; Shawnee, Kansas; Grandview, Missouri; and Gladstone, Missouri.

In April, Austin, Texas was named as the second large city to get Fiber, quickly followed by Provo, Utah less than two weeks later. These cities are likely to get their own expansions to surrounding city suburbs.

Top Image credit: Spike Mafford

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Samsung co-CEO Shin Jong-kyu told media last week that he expected the Galaxy S4 to pass 10 million channel sales this week, and that has proven to be true as the electronics giant announced the milestone today. That feat makes it the company’s fastest selling phone ever.

The Galaxy S4 was released at the end of April thus, by hitting 10 million sales already, it has reached the milestone 20 times faster than its predecessor — the Galaxy S3 — which took two months.

Samsung’s Galaxy range actually passed 100 million sales to date (again, this is channel sales, so sales to retailers and operators rather than consumers) in January this year. That news coincided, rather nicely, with the Galaxy S3 clocking up 40 million channel sales within 7 months of its launch.

Yet, despite the impressive figures, Apple’s iPhone is in a league of its own when it comes to sales records. Consumer (not channel) sales of the iPhone 5 topped five million during the first weekend following its release, while the same device logged two million sales in China the weekend after its launch.

At this point it isn’t clear what new devices the Galaxy S4 will come up against. Apple is rumored to be planning to launch a new version of the iPhone later this year, which would become its main contender. Going on today’s announcement, competition from the likes of the well-regard HTC One has not cut into demand for Samsung’s flagship device.

The Galaxy S4 has a premium 5-inch 1080p display, set at an impressive 441 ppi. Under the hood is a quad-core 1.6 GHz Cortex-A15 processor, bumped up by an additional quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7 chipset. The phone has enjoyed a monumental marketing campaign both before and after its launch, starting with a number of teaser videos that included Seth Rogan and Paul Rudd during the Superbowl, as well as this little chap leading up to the launch event in New York.

The Broadway-style unveiling in the Big Apple drew some criticism from the press, but it was without doubt one of Samsung’s grandest and most high-profile media events. Billboard and television advertisements have since swamped a number of major cities, giving the Galaxy S4 the best possible chance at retail.

Related: Confirmed: Samsung buys 10% stake in Korean handset maker Pantech for $48 million

Headline image via Greg Wood / Getty Images

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Jon Russell / The Next Web:

Jack Dorsey’s digital payments company Square expands beyond North America, landing in Japan first  —  Red hot payments startup Square is invading Asia after it announced that its service has launched in Japan, which becomes its third market worldwide in addition to the US and Canada.

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Amazon Takes Kindle Fire HD Tablets To 170 Countries As It Ramps Up Its Appstore To Nearly 200 Markets  —  No, we still don’t have any word from Amazon on where it stands with a smartphone, but it’s definitely making its mobile ambitions clear anyway.  Today, the e-commerce giant took …

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Chrome 27 for Android is out: Fullscreen on phones, simplified searching, tab history on tablets, and more  —  Just a day after releasing Chrome 27 on the desktop, Google on Wednesday announced the release of Chrome 27 for Android, adding fullscreen support on phones and a tab history option on tablets.

Colleen Taylor / TechCrunch:

Hands-On With The Scanadu Scout, The Health Gadget That’s Crowdfunding Its Way To FDA Approval  —  The last time we met with the folks from Scanadu, we had a very limited look its much buzzed-about line of gadgets that aim to bring vital sign monitoring beyond the realm of the hospital and available to anyone with a smartphone.