Is YouTube challenging Kremlin media stranglehold?

Cult cartoon character Mr Freeman is part of a digital onslaught on the political establishment Continue reading the main storyRelated StoriesNo end in sight to era of PutinRussians split over Putin for presidentRussia country profile Media control has been one of the key factors that have allowed Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to dominate Russia's political landscape since he was first elected president in 2000. As the country prepares for parliamentary and presidential elections, though, there are signs that the Kremlin is facing a fresh media challenge in the form of an increasingly politicised audience on YouTube. Over the past few weeks, a number of Russian politics-themed clips on YouTube have achieved over one million views. The videos are in a variety of genres - political polemic,...

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ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime arrives at the FCC, we feign surprise

You've seen it in the wild and even in the hands of ASUS honcho Jonney Shih at AsiaD. Now the tablet set to continue the Eee Pad Transformer's legacy has reared its 10-inch face at the FCC. Considering the Prime's leaked November 9th launch date, it's no shock to see the tablet now surfacing at the Commission with confidentiality agreements in tow. Most of the slate's internal goods are hidden behind that wall of secrecy, but we can confirm the de rigeur presence of WiFi and Bluetooth capabilities. Shih's already dished out some of this quad-core tab's specs, so we know to expect a mini-HDMI port, 14.5-hour battery, SD card slot and a destined Ice Cream Sandwich OS. The only remaining question is whether this second coming will pack any wireless operator-friendly frequencies. We'll keep you...

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BlackBerry Torch 9810 up for pre-order, illuminating T-Mobile stores November 9th

T-Mobile is getting ready for another BlackBerry-flavored spark -- the Torch 9810 is now up for pre-order for the carrier's business customers. The 3.2-inch slider will be bringing its full QWERTY keyboard, 4G, 1.2GHz processor and BlackBerry OS 7 to T-Mobile stores on November 9th for $250 -- after the mail-in rebate and with a two-year plan, naturally. Press info after the break. Show full PR textT-Mobile Announces Upcoming Availability of the BlackBerry Torch 9810 T-Mobile USA Inc. today announced the upcoming availability of the BlackBerry® Torch™ 9810, the latest 4G BlackBerry smartphone to join America's Largest 4G Network™. Powered by...

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HP and Calxedas Moonshot ARM servers will bring all the boys to the yard (video)

HP and Calxeda's indiscreet partnership has been revealed to the world: Project Moonshot is a new server based around a brand new ARM-based EnergyCore system-on-chip. These new units are so efficient that a four core version, packing 4GB DRAM, consumes just five watts at full pelt -- for perspective, that's less than your average tablet. The other funky innovation is that all the server nodes now share a single power, cooling, management and storage system rather than carrying it themselves. In terms of space saving, the Redstone four unit chassis you can see in the image above can hold 288 of the little blighters. If you set your alarm clock...

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BBM Music now rocking BlackBerry App World (video)

RIM's BBM Music is now ready for public consumption. The simply titled mobile app is hitting the company's App World today for users in the US, Canada and Australia -- with more areas coming soon, naturally. BBM Music lets BlackBerry owners add 50 songs from a choice of millions and harnesses the social networking capabilities of BBM, giving Premium users access to music from their friends' music profiles. Check out video of the app in action, after the bre...

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HP's 3115m is the Pavilion dm1z rebadged for the business set, starts at $429

You've seen that laptop before. You know you have. Stumped? Okay, here it is. HP just announced the 11.6-inch 3115m for the business market and it is, for all intents and purposes, a rebadged Pavilion dm1z being marketed to a more buttoned-up kind of customer. For starters, it looks just like the newly redesigned dm1, flush trackpad and all. A dual-core AMD E-450 APU, 1366 x 768 display, Beats Audio and battery rated for 11.5 hours come standard. At the entry level, you'll also get a modest 2GB of RAM and 320GB 5,400RPM HDD. Oddly, 5,400RPM drives are as good as it gets here, whereas with the dm1 7,200RPM disks are the gold standard and you can...

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Stanford program cracks text-based CAPTCHAs, shelters the replicants among us

CAPTCHAs. In the absence of a Voigt-Kampff apparatus, they're what separate the humans from the only-posing-to-be-human. And now three Stanford researchers have further blurred that line with Decaptcha, a program that uses image processing, segmentation and a spell-checker to defeat text-based CAPTCHAs. Elie Bursztien, Matthieu Martin and John Mitchell pitted Decaptcha against a number of sites: it passed 66% of the challenges on Visa's Authorize.net and 70% at Blizzard Entertainment. At the high end, the program beat 93% of MegaUpload's tests; at other end, it only bested 2% of those from Skyrock. Of the 15 sites tried, only two completely repelled...

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Goodbye Nokia 600, we hardly knew ye

Symbian just scored another blow. The Belle-installed Nokia 600 was announced in late August, destined to be a great music-centric phone for anyone trying to stay on a budget. Sadly, it appears its fate has been sealed before its release, as the company's taken down any pages on its websites that are related to the product. Then, if that weren't enough confirmation, it also broke the news of the handset's demise to a disappointed Facebook fan. We haven't been given a reason for the sudden decision to cease and desist, but we're not discounting the coincidence of this happening so shortly after the Lumia series was reveal...

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iOS 5.0.1 seeded to developers, battery life fixes and multitasking gestures in tow

Well that didn't take long. After officially commenting on iOS 5's battery woes, Apple's gone and issued a beta of iOS 5.0.1 for developers to help fix the flaw. Per the changelog, build 9A402 fixes bugs relating to battery life and iCloud document syncing, improves voice recognition for Aussies and re-enables multitasking gestures on the original iPad. That last item is of particular interest to iPad devs, who had their ability to enable four-finger gestures unceremoniously yanked by Apple in iOS 5's final release. We welcome these goodies with open arms, but here's hoping universal Siri support comes in iOS 5.0.2. Update: According to 9to5Mac,...

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Karumas PlayBase tablet doesnt mind doing it for the kids

Infant-friendly devices are the "in thing" for panicking adults who don't want jammy fingers all over their Galaxy Note. Karuma is the newest to aim for the pre-Bieber crowd with the PlayBase: a cheap, durable tablet that's 9.7mm thick. The key specs include a 7-inch capacitive multitouch display, WiFi and a 1.2GHz Rockchip RK2918 Cortex A8 (the same chip in the AndyPad Pro, Archos Arnova 8 and 10). It's running a custom-skinned version of Gingerbread, but the company has included 1GB of DDR3 RAM in anticipation for a forthcoming bump to Honeycomb or Ice Cream Sandwich. As well as the rugged design, you'll also find it comes with a shock-absorbent...

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Google Maps to charge for usage

Counting the cost How many civilians lost their lives in Nato air strikes in Libya? Most PopularShared 1: 7 billion folks and also you: What's your quantity? 2: Rare white kiwi survives surgery 3: US hits Unesco with funding minimize four: Townshend calls Apple 'a vampire' 5: Monkeys work in Japanese restaurant Learn 1: Greece to hold bailout referendum 2: 7 billion individuals and you: What's your number? three: US solder jailed for Korean rape four: Medvedev behaving 'like dictator' 5: Townshend calls Apple 'a vampire' 6: UN concern over Libyan weapons 7: Uncommon white kiwi survives surgical procedure 8: Gillard fury over...

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Virgin Media and Spotify pair up

Virgin Media plans to extend Spotify from computers and smartphones to tv units Proceed studying the principle storyRelated StoriesIs Spotify too friendly with Fb?Virgin Media adverts 'misleading'Spotify sued over music streaming Virgin Media has released the main points of its promised partnership with the Spotify music service. New customers shopping for Virgin's 30Mbps or sooner broadband package deal in the UK will obtain six months of free entry to Spotify's premium service. Current subscribers will get the identical provide when they renew their contracts. Specialists imagine the bundle will help Spotify compete against Apple's iTunes...

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Minecraft wins gaming arts award

Minecraft allows players to manipulate a randomly generated panorama Continue studying the principle storyRelated StoriesMicrosoft studies report revenueGolden Joystick Awards unveiledCataclysm hits Warcraft's world Minecraft is the winner of a brand new arts award for pc games. The prize was announced at the finale of the GameCity videogame culture competition in Nottingham. The title is the work of an impartial Swedish company, Mojang. Players must build objects out of blocks in an open environment. The sport was chosen over releases from huge identify publishers, together with Digital Arts' Portal 2, developed by Valve, and Microsoft's Ilomilo. "It...

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BT accelerates UK broadband rollout

A report discovered the UK ranks 25th on this planet in terms of broadband pace Continue studying the primary storyRelated StoriesNI broadband service criticisedEU billions for broadband planBT turns up broadband velocity dial Telecoms provider BT is accelerating its fibre broadband rollout. It now plans to offer "tremendous-quick" web speeds to two-thirds of UK premises by the top of 2014. The target is a 12 months forward of its original plan. The agency says its most important product will supply most obtain speeds about 10 instances sooner than at present, at 70-100Mbps on average. That may help it compete in opposition to Virgin Media's 100Mbps offer. BT says it is using an extra 520 engineers and bringing ahead...

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BMW three Series gets 'full-coloration' heads-up show

If you've been hankering for some HUD action in your next auto, you'll have one more choice come next spring: the all-new 2012 BMW 3 Series. The launch will mark the first time a heads-up display has made it into Bavaria's volume seller, after debuting as an optional extra eons ago on its 5 Series. Since then, HUDs of limited hues have permeated München's high-end, splaying speed and navigation directions in the line of sight of road-going elites everywhere. However, this iteration is "full-color," which besides pleasing ROY G. BIV fans, makes it "more intuitive," as the company reasons it'll aid drivers in recognizing crucial alerts faster. That, or we're really just a generation away from über cool AR wizardry and movies on our windscreens. Of course, no word on when the 3's brethren will...

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