Crackdown On Download Bots Meant Installs For Top iOS Apps Took A Dive In March

Downloads for the top 200 free apps in the U.S. iTunes app store took a 30 percent dive in March, according to Fiksu, a Charles River Ventures-backed company that helps mobile developers find users cheaply. The culprit? Two things. One is that we're just coming out of the very lucrative holiday season, when downloads spike and people get new phones that they're eager to experiment with through trying tons of apps. The other may be Apple's crackdown on download bots, or automated programs that downloads apps tens of thousands of times to help them break into the top of the charts. Fiksu says that the top 200 free U.S. iPhone apps saw 4.45 million downloads per day in March, down from 6.35 million per day in February. Apple issued a warning to developers during the first week of February, telling them not to use services that explicitly manipulate the charts.

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Panasonic teams up with NHK on 145-inch 8K Super Hi-Vision plasma TV

We thought the 8K 85-inch Super Hi-Vision LCD we saw during CES was impressive, but Japanese broadcaster NHK is already looking to surpass that by going even bigger. To that end it worked with Panasonic (above: that's Panasonic's Keishi Kubota on the left, Yoshio Ito of NHK on the right) to create this 145-inch prototype plasma, unveiled today as an example of the kind of displays we can expect to see once broadcasts jump to the higher resolution some day. The world's first self-illuminating Super Hi-Vision TV, it features every pixel of its expected 8K resolution -- 7,680 x 4,320. After working for months on smaller (only 85- or 103-inch) 4K plasmas, the two companies had to come up with an entirely new drive method for the display that works by scanning the pixels vertically to achieve a uniform picture quality. The NHK plans to show off the new display at its open house in May, although we're a bit more interested to see if we can watch the Olympics on it this summer. Check the gallery below for a few more pictures from DigInfo.TV's Ryo Osuga, or hit the more coverage link for a breakdown of the difficulties encountered in building a high resolution display that's this massive.

Gallery: Panasonic 145-inch Super Hi-Vision plasma

[Image Credit: Ryo Osuga, DigInfo.TV]

Panasonic teams up with NHK on 145-inch 8K Super Hi-Vision plasma TV originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Apr 2012 08:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Twilio?s European March Continues With Its First Full-Time Hire Outside The U.S. [And Telefonica Loses One]

Twilio, developer of a VoIP API that is used by companies like eBay, Airbnb and Hulu to add voice services into their consumer apps, has been adding support for European countries as part of its expansion strategy, first the UK and then Austria, Denmark, France, Ireland and Poland. Now Twilio is giving that effort a bit more muscle with the appointment of its first full-time, permanent employee outside the U.S. James Parton is joining the company as its new European marketing director. His hiring is also effectively a jab at the carrier market that Twilio very much has the chance to really disrupt: Parton has been poached from Telefonica, the Spanish mobile powerhouse, where he has most recently been running developer marketing for Telefonica's multi-regional API effort BlueVia, and before that for BlueVia's more local precursor, Litmus at O2 UK.

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Sony Xperia U gets torn to pieces, FCC destroys something beautiful

There's not much we don't already know about Sony's Xperia U (formerly the Kumquat), the entry-level Gingerbread handset for the company's revamped mobile offerings. Fortunately, those brave boys down in the FCC's underground bunker decided to dissect the handset and delve into its internals, where we can still see some of that Ericsson branding -- presumably it doesn't see any harm in using up some of its old parts if they're hidden from view. Old-timey livery issues aside, the appearance of the handset bodes that all is on schedule for arrival in the second quarter of the year.

Gallery: Sony Xperia U internal gallery

Sony Xperia U gets torn to pieces, FCC destroys something beautiful originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Apr 2012 10:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Boehner calls Obama's travel plans 'pathetic' (Los Angeles Times)

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Clueless Joe Biden strikes again (Powerlineblog)

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Lindsay Lohan Brushes Off Rosie O'Donnell Bashing

Lindsay Lohan is said to be in shock that Rosie O'Donnell bashed her on live TV yesterday, believing she always had a great relationship with the talk show host.

She's not exactly Donald Trump, in other words.

Sources in LiLo's camp say was never any bad blood between the two, and that Lohan and O'Donnell were always on great terms ... or so she thought anyway.

Lindsay always had a special fondness for Rosie, even. One of Lindsay's first ever talk show appearances, at age 12, was on Rosie's old show back in 1998.

But, though she's surprised, Lindsay isn't upset that Rosie slammed her and her upcoming Liz Taylor role ... it just adds more fuel to the comeback fire!

Why waste time worrying about the haters, right? As far as Lohan's concerned, Rosie's just another doubter she's gotta prove wrong. Her rep concurs.

Reacting to the tirade, Lohan's publicist told E! News Tuesday: "I think Rosie should focus on her own career and stop worrying about everyone else's."

Bam.

[Photos: Pacific Coast News]

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