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Infographic: Social Media Policies in the Workplace
Brandon Watson has a mystery Windows Phone with an "amazing" screen
AT&T TouchPad 4G runs through FCC with HSPA speeds [update: Opal, TouchPad Go?]
And HTC’s ‘major news announcement’ is … Beats Audio?
GameFly to launch ‘Unlimited PC Play’ download service, offer less incentive to leave the house
Can’t wait to play Minecraft on Android? There is always MineBuilder.
Video: Free-Moving Kinect Used To Map Room And Objects In Detailed 3D
Motorola PHOTON 4G vs. Motorola Atrix 4G Dogfight Part 2
AT&T TouchPad 4G runs through FCC with HSPA speeds [update: Opal, TouchPad Go?]
And HTC’s ‘major news announcement’ is … Beats Audio?

Infographic: Social Media Policies in the Workplace

Posted: 10 Aug 2011 06:07 PM PDT

This is an interesting infographic on corporate social media policies. It’s a pretty interesting graphic but, as with most social media policy conversations it only focuses on either brand protection, promoting the brand, or employee freedom. The problem is that there’s another huge opportunity in between that the Infographic touches on but doesn’t go into enough detail about…

Productivity!

The ability to network with peers, professionals, vendors and clients provides an opportunity for corporations to quickly provide and extract information. Rather than sitting on the phone or trying to read through documentation and help files, your employees can get online and connect with other users, vendors or consultants to get the information they need to get the job done.

As well, this can be used for recruitment, competitive research, surveys, customer relations… there’s so many advantages to the social business! And with 70.7% of companies blocking social media sites, there’s an incredible opportunity for your company to leapfrog them by taking advantage of the medium.

The other factor to note here… with smartphones in double-digit growth, companies are fooling themselves by thinking they’re blocking social media sites. This reminds me of the good ‘ol days of the Internet, where only a couple employees in the most key positions had access to the Internet and the rest of us had to quietly work on a crappy Intranet. We just gave it all up and played Solitaire instead.

Why in the world would you block your employees from connecting with other professionals? If your employees are on Facebook and being unproductive, that’s not a Facebook or security issue, that’s a performance issue… fire them! Good leaders remove roadblocks, not add them.

A quote from the Infographic:

Today, companies are implementing social media policies of all shapes and sizes – and it’s no wonder why: every month we hear of another PR disaster because of a single tweet gone awry. This has led many companies to ban the use of social media completely while employees are at work. But other companies are taking the opposite approach, believing that a generation raised on technology is more productive when allowed to use it at their own discretion.

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Brandon Watson has a mystery Windows Phone with an "amazing" screen

Posted: 10 Aug 2011 06:06 PM PDT

This is just one of those tease posts since we don’t have much to go on, but earlier today, Microsoft’s Brandon Watson was able to play with some new Windows Phone. His impression was quite enthusiastic, to say the least, especially in regards to the screen. The worse part about his job is of course he can’t share details with us, just yet:

“You know what I hate? Holding a phone I want, but cannot buy and cannot talk about. The worst part about not being able to talk about this #windowsphone is I can’t talk about how amazing the screen is. Holy mamma jamma”

Our first guess would be the rumored Samsung Galaxy SII device, shown off by Microsoft a few weeks ago and seen above. That phone, if the specs remain the same, will sport a 4.3″ Super AMOLED Plus screen aka the latest screen tech from Sammy. We’ve actually played with one of those phones back in Barcelona and indeed, it’s very impressive. Then again, it may be something else. Twitter’r @ShakeWhyBake asked “4.3 inch OLED? at least give us the size!!!…” to which Watson responded “@ShakeWhyBake If size were all that mattered, then we wouldn’t be having this conversation. “

We’re still leaning towards the Super AMOLED Plus story here, but Professeur Thibault believes it may be a new screen resolution, speculating on his blog that it’s a Super AMOLED HD (1280×720). While that would certainly be awesome, we’ve heard Microsoft specifically state that 800×480 is all there will be for sometime and we’re inclined to believe them. But hey, we like a little mystery too.

Source: @BrandonWatson; via Professeur Thibault

AT&T TouchPad 4G runs through FCC with HSPA speeds [update: Opal, TouchPad Go?]

Posted: 10 Aug 2011 06:06 PM PDT

Looking for a cellular-enabled HP TouchPad but don’t know where to look? We’re going to suggest the FCC’s certification labs, because it seems that they got enough hands-on time with the more-mobile-than-yours webOS tablet to give it the a-okay stamp of not brain boiling. There’s not much more to glean from the certification, except to say that the AT&T TouchPad 4G is on its way, and is now closer than ever.

UPDATE: The chaps over at webOSroundup dug into the FCC documents and noticed some interesting things. Firstly the FCC application lists the model as “Opal,” which we’ve seen leaked in the past as a 7-inch webOS tablet. Additionally, the set of four labels in the documents give the name of TouchPad Go, a brand name we saw HP file for back in mid-June. These same labels list familiar specs: 32GB of storage and a 1.5GHz processor.

There are two conclusions we can draw from this: 1) This FCC filing was for an unannounced 7-inch webOS tablet named the TouchPad Go, or 2) the TouchPad Go is an internal or marketing name for the cellular TouchPad, and the Opal name was not correct when leaked. We’re not entirely sure, and looking at the drawings provided in the filing, we’re really conflicted. It could be that they’re generalized, or components were moved around for the cellular TouchPad, or it could be that this really is a smaller TouchPad. It’s hard to say.

And HTC’s ‘major news announcement’ is … Beats Audio?

Posted: 10 Aug 2011 06:06 PM PDT

The rumors are running rampant as to what Thursday’s "major news announcement" from HTC CEO Peter Chou will be.

Bootloader unlocking? No.
Honeycomb tablets? No.
When your phone will get Gingerbread? No.

Seriously, folks. You don’t hype a "major news announcement" for that stuff. You send a press release.

That said, All ThingsD is reporting that the big news is a $300 million collaboration with Beats Audio. As in Beats by Dre, and the same Beats Audio you’ll find in a smattering of HP products — including the HP TouchPad. The collaboration will be exclusive to HTC smartphones.

Now, that’s nothing to turn your nose up at — there’s definitely a market for a proper Android MP3 player. (So long as it’s priced right.) But with all the patent nonsense floating around and the world still waiting for its first Honeycomb tablet from HTC, the timing for a "major news announcement" sure came at an interesting juncture.

Anyhoo, whether or not the cat’s out of the bag, be sure to join us for the liveblog Thursday morning.

Source: AllThingsD

GameFly to launch ‘Unlimited PC Play’ download service, offer less incentive to leave the house

Posted: 10 Aug 2011 06:06 PM PDT

GameFly hasn’t wasted any time jumping into the digital download waters after acquiring IGN’s Direct2Drive platform a little over two months ago. Set to launch September 8th in beta form, its new “Unlimited PC Play” service will offer subscribers access to 100-plus downloadable PC and Mac titles, with hundreds more expected in time for the official end of year launch. Fans of the video game rental outfit’s snail mail subscription service don’t have to worry about a shift to digital only, as the company has no plans to abandon its “unique combination of console and digital PC game offerings.” Interested in getting an early peek at the new platform? If you live in the Los Angeles area, you can look forward to a planned beta launch party next month, where access codes for the new, invite-only service will be distributed. The rest of you PC gaming warriors will just have to settle for a sign-up page at the source.

GameFly to launch ‘Unlimited PC Play’ download service, offer less incentive to leave the house originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Aug 2011 20:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | source GameFly, Joystiq | Email this | Comments

Can’t wait to play Minecraft on Android? There is always MineBuilder.

Posted: 10 Aug 2011 06:06 PM PDT

We have been checking out a game called MineBuilder for awhile now which is essentially a Minecraft-style game that is actually very similar to actual Minecraft. This game has been out for about 2 months and through quite a few updates MineBuilder has come a long way from it’s inception.

Video: Free-Moving Kinect Used To Map Room And Objects In Detailed 3D

Posted: 10 Aug 2011 05:56 PM PDT

We’ve seen hacks for the Kinect from the very start, and even some that suggested one like this might be possible: a Kinect being moved around like a camera, recording the depth of everything it sees and building up a full-3D map of the room and every object in it. They call it KinectFusion, and it’s really quite fascinating to watch.

The position of the camera is constantly tracked by monitoring the depth of known objects in its view, and with that information known, the 3D data recorded can be given absolute measurements, producing a static map of the room. And it all happens in real time. Watch just the first demonstration and you can see the system “painting” a 3D model of the room as quickly as the researcher can move the Kinect around.

It tolerates change, as well: move objects in the scene and it’ll update the model. It “knows” whether an object is moving or the camera itself is. And by combining this new model with the normal capabilities of the Kinect, the room or object can be interacted with, as they demonstrate in the video by “throwing” gobs of little paintballs at things in real time, and picking up a real-life teapot that is also being mapped in 3D. Absolutely extraordinary that this is being done with an off-the-shelf device, a common PC, and some clever programming.

Among the applications for this suggested by the Microsoft Research team: “extending multi-touch interactions to arbitrary surfaces; advanced features for augmented reality; real-time physics simulations of the dynamic model; novel methods for segmentation and tracking of scanned objects” — and I’m sure you can think of a few yourself. Turning the Kinect into a user-controlled tool instead of a passive user-monitoring tool opens up a huge amount of possibilities, as other hacks have demonstrated as well.

The project was demonstrated at SIGGRAPH yesterday, but this video really shows it off much better. Hopefully we’ll see a code release soon and people can play around with this amazing tool.

[via Reddit]

Motorola PHOTON 4G vs. Motorola Atrix 4G Dogfight Part 2

Posted: 10 Aug 2011 05:55 PM PDT

Dogfight time! Aaron does a head to head battle between Sprint’s Motorola PHOTON 4G and AT&T’s Motorola Atrix 4G . The PHOTON 4G packs a 1 GHz dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2 CPU, 4.3-inch qHD display with PenTile technology, 8-megapixel camera with 720p HD video recording, front-facing shooter, global roaming capabilities, and Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) with Motorola’s Applications Platform. The Atrix 4G, on the other hand, sports a 1 GHz dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2 CPU,…