China Telecom May Want In on Apple Action

China Telecom, China’s largest fixed-line operator, appears to be changing its position about possibly offering Apple (AAPL) products in the near future. Chief Executive Wang Xiaochu said at a press conference Tuesday that the company is evaluating market response for Apple’s iPad tablet computer before it holds any talks with the U.S. consumer electronics company. Previously, Wang has said the company isn’t interested in offering Apple’s popular iPhone because of high costs and stiff competition to secure the rights to sell the device in China.

But Tuesday Wang said: “If there’s demand from customers, we welcome any creative new device. Our focus is to bring convenience and enjoyment to our customers. Since iPad has just been launched, it takes time for us to evaluate the product. Both of us [China Telecom and Apple] have to evaluate the market situation in China to see how large the market demand would be. It will determine whether we have any interest in any cooperation.”

China Telecom’s more open approach toward Apple products signifies intensifying competition in the Chinese telecom market.

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Exclusive: Yahoo Front Page Head Tapan Bhat Leaves Company

Another longtime Yahoo exec is departing–this time Tapan Bhat (pictured here), who had purview over the Internet giant’s important front page.

News of the departure came from new Chief Product Officer Blake Irving in an internal email titled “Busy Week” that highlighted the Yahoo (YHOO) investor day that took place yesterday.

Buried at the end of the memo was a paragraph noting that “there’s always a downside to a productive week” and that Bhat had decided to leave the company.

Bhat’s team will report to Yahoo exec Jeff Kinder until a replacement is found. It is not clear what Bhat’s plans are.

Bhat joins a number of top execs who have recently clocked out of Yahoo of late, such as U.S. advertising head Joanne Bradford.

Bhat was in charge of a range of products at Yahoo, most importantly, the most recent redesign of its powerful homepage a year ago.

Yahoo has since confirmed the departure.

“Tapan Bhat, SVP, Integrated Consumer Experiences, has decided to leave Yahoo!. Tapan has been an integral leader within the Products organization since joining Yahoo! more than five years ago and we value his many contributions and wish him well. His last day will be June 15.”

And from Bhat:

“Leaving Yahoo! has been a difficult decision to make because I’m incredibly proud of the work that’s been accomplished by my teams over the last five years, particularly related to the Yahoo! homepage, My Yahoo!, our content optimization engine and most recently, our Mobile and iPad apps. I’m looking forward to new challenges that lie ahead and am confident that I’m leaving Yahoo! on the right path, and with the right leadership in place.”

According to some sources inside and outside of Yahoo, Bhat has clashed with CEO Carol Bartz at times and has long been considering a new move.

Steve Jobs Reinvents the CEO With E-Mail Campaign

Most Fortune 500 CEOs are about as accessible as Kim Jong Il, but Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs has been breaking the mold. He’s sent terse e-mail replies to more than a dozen customer inquiries — and one journalist — in the past few months.

It’s not that he’s become unusually friendly.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

How to Convert AVI to PSP

Next tip will show you how to convert AVI to PSP MP4 video with Aiseesoft PSP Video Converter.

Before our conversion, please download and install Aiseesoft PSP Movie Converter at first.

Step 1: Launch the powerful AVI to PSP Converter.

Step 2: Add AVI files.

Click Add File button on the tool bar. Select the AVI files you want to convert and import them into the converter.

Step 3: Select a PSP video format as your output format.

Click "Profile" drop-down list to select one output format.

Tip 1: You can change video and audio parameters according to your needs.

Tip 2: Press Save as… to reserve your well-customized profile for your next use.

Step 4: Choose output folder.

Click Browse... button to choose a folder for saving your converted PSP video files.

Step 5: Start AVI to PSP conversion.

Click Start button on the right bottom to start the AVI to PSP conversion. Several minutes later, you can enjoy your converted AVI video on PSP. More information at: Convert AVI to PSP .

How to Convert RM to WMV

Simple tutorial:

1. Free download and launch RM to WMV program

2. Add File

Click on the "Add File" button on the tool bar to select RM (Real Media). The file will be added to the conversion file list.

3. Select output format

Use Profile expanded panel on the bottom to select WMV as output video format.

4. Select output directory

Use the "Browse" button to select an output directory.

5. Convert

Click Start button to finish RM to WMV conversion in short moments.

More converting or editing information is available at: RM to WMV

How to Convert MTS to AVI

Guide on converting MTS to AVI:

Preparation: Download, install and launch this software.

Step 1: Load Video

Click "Add File" to load MTS video that you want to convert to AVI.

Step 2: Choose Output Profile and Settings

From "Profile" drop-down list you can choose your output format according to your portable device.

You can also click "settings" to adjust output "video/audio encoder", "Video/audio Bitrate", "Channels", "Resolution" and so on…

Step 3: Video Editing

When you convert MTS to AVI, it allows you to do many video editing such as making special Effect for your movie, Trim any length segments, Crop playing area and more.

Step 4: Conversion

After you have done all the steps above you can click "Start" button to start your conversion from MTS to AVI.

More info you can visit: How to Convert MTS to AVI.

Google’s Laughable–But Not So Funny–Apple Tantrum

Okay, one good dig at Apple by Google at its I/O event over the last two days seemed like the right thing to do given their recent bickering over a range of issues.

Two digs at its rival was probably appropriate. Three, welllll, okay, if you insist.

Unfortunately, the continued verbal jousts at Apple (AAPL) by many Google (GOOG) execs–including CEO Eric Schmidt–onstage at the San Francisco developers conference got tired pretty quickly and soon felt petty and juvenile, and ultimately made Google look needlessly defensive.

It’s part of a recent escalation of tensions between various powerful digital companies in Silicon Valley.

Even dopier: The search giant’s display of a “1984” poster with the motto, “Not the Future We Want,” which was a cloddish reference to Apple’s innovative commercial aimed at IBM (IBM) decades ago.

Note to Google: A scary search behemoth with a stranglehold on Internet advertising isn’t really believable as a victim of “The Man”–in this case, Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

Still, there was Google Engineering VP Vic Gundotra–doing his best imitation of a geek Gary Cooper–noting in this video below that “if Google did not act, we faced a Draconian future in which one man, one company, one device, one carrier would be our only choice. That’s a future we don’t want.”

As they say so eloquently on the “Really!?! With Seth and Amy” segment on “Saturday Night Live”: Reaaaaaallly!?! Reaaaaaallly!?!

Memo to Vic: This is not “High Noon.” And Draconian is Chinese censorship. Draconian is Al-Qaeda. Draconian is a reptilian extraterrestrial race from the British science fiction television series “Doctor Who”!!!

While it’s fine and dandy–and de rigeur–to rev up developers, which is the ultimate purpose of this Android-focused event, I would much prefer Microsoft (MSFT) Steve Ballmer’s “Developers, developers, developers” sweatfest any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

As a former Microsoft exec, Gundotra should know that’s always a showstopper.

In any case, here is Gundotra’s speech yesterday to contrast to that sweaty Ballmer video, along with Jobs’s IBM-bashing introduction of Apple’s “1984” commercial, which is a primer on how you reaaaaalllly strafe a competitor.

Also the Draconians on “Dr. Who” and “Really!?! With Seth and Amy”:

More Money for Twitter Apps: TweetDeck Raises Another $3 Million

Remember last month, when everyone was convinced that Twitter was going to cut off the oxygen to all the start-ups that had built up around the service?

I talked to TweetDeck CEO Iain Dodsworth at the time, and he seemed reasonably confident that Twitter wasn’t going to crush his small app company into pulp. His argument: We serve a specific niche of Twitter users, and Twitter is happy to let us do that. We’ll be fine.

Others seem to be buying in. TweetDeck got a big push yesterday from Google (GOOG), which gave it a slot during its I/O developer conference. And today, the company has announced that it raised another $3 million in a Series B round. It has now raised about $5 million in less than two years.

This is an inside round, with all the previous investors, led by Betaworks, participating. So if you want to be a skeptic, you might wonder why the company didn’t get new money this time.

But regardless, it’s a vote of confidence that there’s plenty of growth left for companies–at least, some companies–that want to service Twitter users.

Hotmail Updates From the Dark Ages

Well, it took Microsoft long enough to update the features of Hotmail, which the company is announcing this week.

Some new doodads include better filtering, more social integration, lots of multimedia content, such as photo slideshows and–perhaps most importantly–the ability to use Microsoft Office software documents like PowerPoint within the online email service.

It’s a wonder it took so long for Microsoft (MSFT) to upgrade and innovate–Dear Windows Live Hotmail team, conversation views in email is not new to anyone but you–the service, although it remains No. 2 after Yahoo (YHOO) Mail. Google (GOOG) Gmail is third.

Microsoft, which blogged about the changes here, has called the whole shebang of releases in its Window Live services “Wave 4.”

Wave 3, um, was in 2008.

How to Convert AVI to iPhone MP4 on Mac

How to watch AVI video files on iPhone? Aiseesoft iPhone Video Converter for Mac is professional Mac iPhone converter to convert AVI to iPhone MP4 on Mac computer. What's more, getting iPhone audios from AVI and other video and audio formats is fully supported. Then I will show you how to convert AVI to iPhone MP4 Mac. Just free download Aiseesoft iPhone Video Converter for Mac software firstly.

Note: This guide is for Mac users, if you use windows, Please visit iPhone Movie Converter for Windows.

1 Click "Add File" button on the tool bar, it lets you browse your computer to choose the AVI file you want to convert.

2 Choose a proper format you want according to your device in the profile list on bottom. Here you can select iPhone MPEG-4 format.

Then click "Browse" to specify a location on your computer and open folder to check them later.

3 Converting AVI to iPhone MP4 Mac by clicking "Start" button

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PowerPC

Tip (Optional): AVI to iPhone converter Mac provides customers an excellent video editing system. You can get any-time length clips, crop video, customize output video effect and more to upgrade your digital life.

Explore How to Convert AVI to iPhone MP4 Mac for more details.

How to Convert 3GP to MP4 on Mac

How to convert 3GP to MP4 on Mac? It is needed to know what 3GP is in the first place. 3GP is a multimedia container format used by mobile phones and was designed to make file sizes smaller so mobile phones could support video. Here Aiseesoft MP4 converter for Mac helps you out to convert 3GP to MP4 Mac.

Downloading free trial is available.

Intel Version

Power PC Version

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PPC

How to Convert 3GP to MP4 on Mac?

Step 1, Double click the "Aiseesoft MP4 Converter for Mac" icon on your desktop to run it.

Step 2, Click "Add file" button on the left top of the main window to select video file(s) you would to convert to MP4, they can be 3GP, WMV, MOV, ASF … format.

Step 3, Select output format and choose output directory

Use the "Profile" to control the output format and select "MPEG-4 Video" as the output format.

Use the "Browse" to select an output folder for saving converted MP4 videos.

Step 4, After all the preparations, just click "Start" to convert 3GP to MP4 on Mac.

Tip: If you want to try more editing, press

How to rip DVD to video audio files like AVI WMV MPEG FLV 3GP MP4 MP3

This DVD Ripper guide includes 4 parts:
How to convert DVD to iPhone/iPod/PSP/Zune/Apple TV/Phone/PS3/Xbox 360/Zen/Pocket PC/AVI/MPEG/MP4?
How to edit, combine, effect and cut DVD movies?
How to extract and rip audio from DVD to MP3 for iPod nano, shuffle and other MP3 players?
How to put DVD clips on Youtube, Myspace?

What you need is Aiseesoft DVD Ripper; you can download it for free here:
http://www.aiseesoft.com/dvd-ripper.html

Part 1: How to convert DVD to iPhone/iPod/PSP/Zune/Apple TV/Mobile Phone/PS3/Xbox 360/Zen/Pocket PC ?

Step1. Insert your DVD disc into your DVD-Rom, then run the software, click "Load DVD" button and add the DVD file. You can also add DVD/IFO from your hard disk by clicking “Load DVD” or “Load IFO File”.



Step2. Ihis software can convert DVD to various video formats such as MPEG-4, AVI, WMV, FLV, 3GP, VOB, etc. Click the "Profile" drop down list to select a format.



If you don't know much about mobile players, just select a format according to the name of your mobile player. For example, if you want to copy DVD to iPhone, just select "iPhone Video MPEG-4 (*.mp4)", and the default setting works great. If you want to customize the output video, you can click the "Settings" button next to the profile to open the Settings window and set video resolution, frame rate, bitrate, encoder, etc. See the figure below:



Step3. Regular DVD movies usually have several subtitles such as English, French, German, etc. You can select one you prefer. You can also delete the subtitle by selecting "No Subtitle". Selecting Audio is the same.



After the above steps, click "Start" to start conversion.

Next part: How to edit, combine DVD and extract DVD Clips from DVD?

Why Ma Bell Got the Ill Communication

Nearly one in four U.S. households has abandoned traditional landline telephones in favor of their wireless brethren. That’s the word from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which says in a new study (PDF) that 25 percent of the households it polled for its Wireless Substitution survey are wireless-only, while just 15 percent are landline-only. Quite a change from 2006 when 11 percent of homes claimed to use only cellphones.

And the trend here is self-evident. In the last six months of 2009, the number of households with no landline but at least one cell rose 4.3 percent year-over-year. It’s no wonder the telecom industry is seeing ugly and continued losses in traditional landline service revenue.

Clearly, the mobile phone is increasingly viewed as a necessity and the landline a luxury. As well they should be: The former let’s you make and receive calls to and from almost anywhere, check e-mail and take pictures; the latter allows you to make and receive calls–nothing more. Given that, why bother with a landline? And given the obvious answer to that question, how long will it be before the landline goes the way of the rotary dial phone?

Facebook Privacy Options Chart Would Make a Great Halloween Corn Maze

As cavalier as it sounds, Facebook’s advice to users concerned about its privacy policies and practices–“If you’re not comfortable sharing, don’t.”–might seem unassailable. But as counsel, its pretty weak coming from a company with a privacy policy longer than the United States Constitution and a set of privacy tools that couldn’t be more Byzantine if they were designed by the International Labyrinth Society.

Consider this graphic from the New York Times, which shows the proliferation of options available in those tools (click chart to link to larger version on original site).

Addles the brain, doesn’t it?

As the Times notes, to opt out of full disclosure of most of their personal information, Facebook users must click through more than 50 privacy buttons, which then require making decisions about more than 170 options.

Facebook describes its privacy tools as “comprehensive and precise,” but that’s poor justification for something so ridiculously convoluted from a company that positions itself as a caretaker of identity.

Little wonder that Facebook is facing a barrage of criticism. As European Union’s Article 29 Working Party said in a scathing letter today, Facebook’s privacy practices are “unacceptable.”

Whoever Built the “Toy Story 3” Web Site in Flash, Please Report to HR Immediately–and Bring Everything in Your Desk With You

As Disney’s largest shareholder and most prominent board member, Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs may have left his fingerprints all over the media giant’s new retail strategy, but they aren’t quite so visible on its Web strategy.

Certainly, Disney’s (DIS) Web design team doesn’t seem to have received Jobs’s recent memo on Adobe (ADBE) Flash, because its site for the upcoming Pixar film, “Toy Story 3,” appears to have been built using Flash. Below, the official “Toy Story 3″ Web site as viewed on an iPad:

[Image credit: John Gruber]

UPDATE: That was fast. Looks like Disney’s tweaked the site to support the iPad. As of 1:46 PM PST the site works just fine on Apple’s new device.

UPDATE: Disney claims today’s cock-up was the result of a technical glitch that “led some iPad users to be inadvertently redirected to the Flash-based site, instead of the iPad enabled site.”

How to Convert FLV to MP3

After installing and running the program, you can see the clear interface as below. Follow instructions in "Getting Started" on it and you will be able to convert FLV to MP3 successfully or do as steps below.

Firstly, click "Add File" to load your FLV sources.

Secondly, select output format – MP3 for your imported files, and browse your computer to find an appropriate place to save.

Tip: Settings allow you to set video/audio parameters optionally.

Click Play button to preview the media file for reference and enter the Start and End Time to trim any video clips.

Thirdly, click "Start" to convert FLV to MP3 at once.

Here How to convert FLV to MP3 involves more.

How to Convert AVI to MP3

Download trial version or order full version of this AVI to MP3 Converter and run it on your computer.

Tutorial for converting AVI to MP3:

1, Load the AVI file

You can click "File" to open the drop-down menu, then select "Add File" to add your AVI sources.

2, Set the output format

Profile: Select an output format – MP3 for the selected file

Settings: You can set video/audio parameters yourself.

Merge into one file: Check this option and the program will join all the added video files into a single one.

Destination: Browse your computer to find a suitable place to save the converted files.

Tip: Want to convert some part of audio from the AVI file? Click the Play button to preview the media file and set the Start Time and the End Time in Trim edit window.

3, Click "Start" to convert

Click "Start" button to convert AVI to MP3.

That's it! It is as easy as a-b-c. Click How to convert AVI to MP3 to know more knowledge involved.

GameHouse Fusion: One Leaderboard to Rule Them All

When RealNetworks finally spins off its games business as a separate company it will be known as GameHouse, not RealGames, and its business will be social gaming.

At the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco today, Real (RNWK) announced GameHouse Fusion, a suite of tools intended to make any game social across any device or platform.

With GameHouse, developers can easily build social features like friends lists, leaderboards and virtual goods into games in such a way that they’re consistent and persistent across all the devices and platforms on which they might be used. So, for example, a user’s high score on a game might be updated across multiple social networks, not just the one on which it was achieved.

Essentially, what GameHouse is attempting to do is federate social identity. Quite a task, but one with significant rewards if the company pulls it off.

“People are looking for connected experiences,” GameHouse President John Barbour told the Los Angeles Times. “By connecting devices, you connect people. The future is about truly interconnected gameplay, where I can play with my friends across multiple systems whether it’s PC, mobile, iPad or social network.”

Meet Google’s Secret Time Machine Investment

Google Ventures, the search giant’s VC arm, is celebrating its one-year anniversary with some show and tell: The previously secretive investment group now has a website that discloses who works there, and what they’re investing in.

Much of this info has been out in one form or another, and Venture Capital Dispatch’s Scott Austin does a good job of walking you through the details. But here’s one that caught my eye: Google has invested in a company that can see the future!

Recorded Future, based in Boston and Sweden, appears to be in beta, and has a fairly inscrutable home page. But if I’m interpreting its blog and promotional videos correctly, the gist of its product seems to be a search engine that looks for chronological data — ie references to things that happened in the past, or are supposed to happen in the future — and arrays the results in interesting graphs, etc.

Presumably there is more to it than this, but the company is keeping mum. “At this stage we do not do interviews, just trying to stay quiet and build cool stuff for now,” CEO Christopher Ahlberg wrote to me when I sent him an email inquiry today.

Google Ventures is similarly unhelpful: During a press call to talk about the VC group this afternoon, Google (GOOG) declined to say how much it had invested in Recorded Future, when it made the investment or anything else.

Luckily, the Boston Globe’s Scott Kirsner did some snooping earlier this year, so he’s got a decent workup of the company here. For instance: Business intelligence firm Spotfire, Ahlberg’s previous company, was sold for $195 million in 2007, after raising $40 million.

But if you don’t like reading, here are some clips that sort of hint at where Ahlberg and Google are headed.

Terminally Happy Mayor of Zappos Meets Born-Grumpy Dictator of BoomTown: High Jinks Ensue!

While in Las Vegas recently, BoomTown dropped in at the HQ of Zappos, the online retailer Amazon (AMZN) bought last summer in a deal valued at about $850 million.

The company is well known for its culture of intense happiness, both in its high level of customer service and the enthusiasm of employees of the company, which started as a Web shoe retailer but has been expanding its offerings.

I can tell you first hand that I nearly went into a diabetic coma on my recent tour of the e-commerce company, led by Zappos “Mayor” Jerry Tidmore. That included a lot of sweetness from the staff, as well as way too many baked goods strewn about.