| Telefonica partners with Facebook, Google, Microsoft and RIM for global carrier billing Jul 5th 2012, 18:49  Making a half dozen attempts to guess your login info or typing each digit of a credit card account certainly can get in the way of following through on impulse purchases, which is exactly how you'd categorize FarmVille cash or a featured flick that you know you may not have time to watch within the month. The solution is carrier billing, eliminating those precious seconds between impulse and reconsideration, and Telefonica has just signed on to offer the service to Facebook, Google, Microsoft and RIM account holders. The partnerships will enable O2 users in Germany or Movistar subscribers in Spain to charge purchases to their mobile phone accounts, for example -- in total, 14 Telefonica subsidiaries should be up and running with carrier billing by the end of the year, though some services, such as Google Play and Facebook, have already begun to roll out. Click through to the PR after the break for the full breakdown. Continue reading Telefonica partners with Facebook, Google, Microsoft and RIM for global carrier billing Telefonica partners with Facebook, Google, Microsoft and RIM for global carrier billing originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Jul 2012 14:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink  The Next Web |  Telefonica (PDF) | Email this | Comments | | Windows Server 2012 pares back to four versions, looks to give small businesses more bang for the buck Jul 5th 2012, 18:23  Microsoft has been devoting most of its OS update attention this year to Windows 8, not its suit-wearing Windows Server 2012 counterpart. Some of the mystery has been cleared up through word of a greatly simplified server OS lineup. Just four versions of Windows Server will sit in IT backrooms versus the whopping 12 from Server 2008 R2, with an emphasis on making the feature slope a little gentler. The biggest improvement is the near-identical feature set of Windows Server 2012 Standard compared to its Datacenter equivalent: the only advantage of Datacenter is the jump to unlimited virtual machines, giving smaller businesses a way to save some cash. Foundation and Essentials will cover the basics for these outfits if just 15 or 25 very real machines need to hop onboard. The base prices of $425 to $4,809 per copy for all but the OEM-only Foundation still make it doubtful that we'll be loading Server 2012 on a PC tucked into a closet at home, but it's evident between this and the streamlined Windows 8 selection that Microsoft wants to avoid the flood of versions that confused buyers during the Windows Vista and 7 days. Windows Server 2012 pares back to four versions, looks to give small businesses more bang for the buck originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Jul 2012 14:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink Geekzone, ZDNet | Microsoft | Email this | Comments | | IFAB gives goal-line technology the nod, first official run will be at this year's FIFA Club World Cup Jul 5th 2012, 17:57  For years and years now, football (soccer) fans have been asking themselves when FIFA would finally realize the "beautiful game" needed to start implementing some sort of tech to help referees with decision-making during major tournaments and in every-day matches. Well, that time is now. After a few months of putting the so-called goal-line technology through intensive and rigorous testing, the International Football Association Board (IFAB) has once and for all approved the use of such tech in official footie games. What this means is FIFA will utilize a couple of methods, one dubbed "GoalRef" and the other "Hawk-Eye," to assist refs in any controversial calls that may take place throughout the 90 minutes (or more if there's extra-time) on either goal. The first of these uses electromagnetic antennas around the goal posts and crossbar to transmit a signal to a referee's watch as soon as the entire ball crosses the line; meanwhile, the latter requires six to eight high-speed cameras -- that shoot at 500 fps -- to grab multiple images of the match ball and quickly process them to identify if it indeed crossed the line completely -- this is also helped by black-colored dots on each goal post which aid the cameras gain a better overall precision. What's best, though, these new systems are set to take their first legitimate runs as soon as the FIFA Club World Cup takes place in December, with the upcoming 2014 World Cup in Brazil also said to have the goal-line technology ready to be used in all of its 64 global glory-seeking matches. IFAB gives goal-line technology the nod, first official run will be at this year's FIFA Club World Cup originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Jul 2012 13:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | FIFA | Email this | Comments | |
