blue

Marketer that sued Groupon now targeting Living Social

Blue Calypso, a little-known marketing company, filed suit against Living Social for patent infringement just weeks after accusing Groupon of the same infraction.

The company, which says it provides marketing services for businesses via social media and loyalty rewards services, says Groupon and Living Social has been using its technology.

"As a technology innovator, it is our duty to protect what we have created from illegitimate use," Bill Ogle, CEO of Blue Calypso said in a statement. "The current landscape for social engagement is growing and with that brings interest and need for the platform we developed … Read more

Display Blue Screen of Death data with BlueScreenView

Blue Screen of Death: the very name chills the hearts of Windows users who have experienced it. There's no feeling quite like seeing your work vanish and be replaced by a BSOD, which is Windows' way of telling you it has just crashed, taking whatever you had open with it. NirSoft's BlueScreenView is a kind of coroner's report on your system. It scans the minidump files created when your system crashes and displays a BSOD, collecting them all in a single list view displaying all kinds of information you can use to debug whatever it is that'… Read more

Groupon sued for patent infringement

Groupon was slapped with a lawsuit accusing it of illegally using peer-to-peer advertising company by little-known Blue Calypso.

Blue Calypso said today in a statement that Groupon is infringing on two patents related to its digital word-of-mouth marketing business.

"As companies try to monetize their social media connections, they are rapidly moving into our technological area of expertise and it is imperative that we protect and secure what we have built," Blue Calypso CEO Bill Ogle said in the statement.

CNET contacted Groupon for comment, and we'll update the story when we get a response.

The frequency … Read more

Defcon vending room showcases tech of all ages

LAS VEGAS -- While ninjas inhaled much of the available oxygen in the vendors room, with its truck-based Ninja Tel mobile network, other vendors offered a more esoteric menu of hackables at Defcon this year.

Vendors at the hackers conference came in all sizes. Some signed up hackers to donate their skills to impoverished communities. Others appealed to sartorially minded hackers, with unofficial Defcon 20 T-shirts and other wearables.

In this gallery, CNET showcases three vendors who were offering something interesting or unexpected: Hak5's Darren Kitchen and his penetration-testing tools; Meco proprietor Ira Moser and his collection of antiquated … Read more

Symantec antivirus software update crashes some PCs

A recent update to Symantec's antivirus software rendered some Windows-based PCs inoperable, the security software maker disclosed Friday.

An update earlier in the week to Symantec Endpoint Protection 12.1 antivirus software for businesses caused some Windows XP-based computers to crash repeatedly with a "blue screen of death," the company revealed on its Web site.

"On July 11th, 2012 Symantec Security Response started receiving reports of customers experiencing blue screens after applying the July 11th revision 18 definitions," Orla Cox, of Symantec Security Response, wrote in the post. "Machines may continue to blue screen … Read more

BlueStacks ports Android apps to Mac

SAN FRANCISCO -- App player BlueStacks announced the "marriage" of Mac and Android under a wedding tent today, across the street from the Moscone West home of Google I/O.

You can download the BlueStacks alpha for Mac from CNET Download.com or BlueStacks.com.

The public alpha of BlueStacks for Mac brings BlueStacks' LayerCake technology to OS X and features several apps from BlueStacks partners such as HandyGames, CreativeMobile, and Pulse, in addition to the Android basics. BlueStacks will work on OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and above.

When asked about whether people want Android apps … Read more

U.S. retakes Top500 supercomputer crown

Sequoia, an IBM Blue Gene/Q supercomputer at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, reached 16.32 petaflops, while previous leader K Computer trailed with 10.5 petaflops, according to the Top500 list. The list was published today at the International Supercomputing Conference in Hamburg.

The latest edition of the list, which is published twice a year, shows that Intel is slipping and IBM is recapturing lost ground, while the U.S. is back on top after losing its lead three years ago. New technologies reign, from updated IBM chips to a build of Fujitsu's novel interconnect product.

Intel processors … Read more

Which of these Bluetooth speakerphones sounds the best? (comparison)

Most phones sold these days have a speakerphone mode. This setting is usually good enough for an impromptu hands-free call in a quiet office. However, when you get on the road in a noisy car, the phone's flaws are made apparent. For example, the built-in microphone can be less than ideal for canceling the levels of road and wind noise present in a car at highway speed, which leads to poor quality on the receiving end of your calls. I'm sure that you dislike repeating yourself to callers as much as I do, so let's look at how to improve call quality.

Visor-mounted Bluetooth speakerphones feature more sophisticated microphones with noise and echo-cancellation technology located closer to your head, which can dramatically improve sound quality. How much of an improvement should you expect? I've recorded outbound calls from five speakerphones (and my test phone's internal microphone) to demonstrate. … Read more

Asus to bring Android to Windows with BlueStacks

Asus has revealed a new partnership at Computex today to make its computers more Android-friendly. By teaming with BlueStacks (download), which makes an "app player" for running Android apps on Windows, the company will make Android apps available on 30 million Windows computers around the world.

"Asus has always been an innovator, and this is a big move for the space," BlueStacks' Chief Executive Officer Rosen Sharma wrote in an e-mail to CNET. "Thirty million computers running mobile apps is a lot, but it's just the beginning."

Asus will include BlueStacks in its … Read more