Now WordPress Will Allow You to Profit from Your Posts

Just a couple of days after Chime.in launched with the promise of allowing users to monetize their own social media, WordPress bloggers are about to get the same ability thanks to a new deal struck between the blogging engine and Federated Media Publishing.

The deal will offer WordPress users a chance to opt-in to Federated's advertising representation starting at some point during Q1 2012. WordPress will take a cut of the ad revenue generated as a result, as well as being paid by Federated for the ability to represent its users.

(MORE: Chime.in Social Network Lets You Earn Cash For Posts)

The partnership, announced Wednesday at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, isn't Federated's first move into the blog space. The company previously had a deal with LiveJournal and TypePad creators Six Apart that quietly disappeared because it didn't "work for advertisers," according to CEO Deanna Brown.

Brown told AdWeek that she "could imagine [Federated] will continue growing relationships with all kinds of independent Web publishing partners" in future, which suggests that other blog platforms may soon follow WordPress' lead. Tumblr advertising, anyone?

Isn't the iPhone 4S Supposed to Be a Disappointment?

Boy, does Apple's iPhone 4S event feel like it happened a long time ago. In fact, it was less than a week ago, and as you may recall, many observers declared the new phone to be a disappointment. But now Apple has released pre-order data, and it seems to suggest that real folks are excited about the 4S. A million people pre-ordered in the first 24 hours, breaking the iPhone 4′s record of 600,000 in the same period.

(MORE: At Least One Million People Want Apple's iPhone 4S)

Why the disparity in reactions? I can think of a few reasons.

1. It all depends on what you're upgrading from. True, the 4S isn't a radical upgrade from the 4–even its name tells you that. But in a country of two-year phone contracts, the most important upgrade market for the iPhone 4S isn't iPhone 4 owners–it's iPhone 3GS ones. And the 4S is a major improvement over the 3GS in multiple respects. (The iPhone 3GS owner in our household can't wait until she moves on up to the 4S.)

2. Lots of Verizon customers who wanted iPhones skipped the iPhone 4. Along with the rest of us, they thought there would be an even newer iPhone in the summer of 2011. They turned out to be wrong. But they'll get their first iPhone when the 4S goes on sale on Friday.

3. Sprint. Its loyalists now get the chance to buy an iPhone for the first time.

4. The new camera. If it lives up to Apple's claims it is a major improvement over the 4′s camera. And lots of us use our phone cameras so much that getting a dramatically better one is as compelling as an upgrade can get. (It's the biggest reason why shelling out the bucks for an upgrade sounds like something I might do.)

5. The never-ending ability of pundits to be unimpressed by Apple keynotes. I think people forget that “this was a disappointing keynote” is almost always a common reaction. (Some people even managed to be bored by the original iPhone. Even if Apple had released an iPhone 5 with a strikingly different design, that would have been the case. Pundit reaction just doesn't map to real-people reaction.

If you're a real person—or even if you aren't—what's your reaction to the iPhone 4S now that the initial post-keynote hubbub has faded?

Twitter To Get 'Tweet' Trademark From Twittad

witter is closer to having dominion over the word "tweet."

On Monday, James Eliason, CEO of Twittad, said in an interview that Twitter would drop a lawsuit it filed against his company last month that sought to nix Twittad's registered trademark of the word "tweet." In return, Des Moines-based Twittad would transfer its registered trademark of "tweet" to Twitter, he said.

(People 'tweet' by posting a message of up to 140 characters on Twitter, an online messaging service.)

Twitter's battle over the "tweet" trademark was the subject of a Wall Street Journal article last month

Google, Vocre, Apple, And Now Raytheon Diving Into Cloud Speech Recognition

If you were following along at Disrupt SF, perhaps you caught Vocre’s impressive demonstration of their near-real-time spoken translation app. As I was watching, I was picturing the gears turning behind the veneer of the app, though: the cloud transcription, translation, and speech APIs, and how there’s a nice big market for this kind of thing. Google knows it, and of course we’ve had speech on Android for a long time. Apple knows it, but took its time to release it in a more consumer-focused package.

Now even defense contractor Raytheon is getting into the game. Their TransTalk app, which has emerged from the soup of defense contracts and government research funds that is DARPA, is specifically designed for deployment in the middle east.

It’s for Android, which jives with the military’s earlier lean towards the operating system, though it look simple enough that it wouldn’t be much of a task for the defense giant to port it to a government-sponsored fork or whatever gets decided on.

The app itself (running on a Motorola Atrix) is a simple affair; it’s meant for deployment with English-speaking troops and has very little in the way of decoration. You select a language (Arabic, Pashto, and Dari are supported, as these are the primary dialects in the middle east theater), speak to it, and it prints and speaks a translation. The other speaker does the same, but pressing a different button.

So the app isn’t noteworthy for its purpose, but what is interesting is that it isn’t a self-contained app, but rather calls out to the cloud. Military applications tend to concentrate as much functionality as possible on the local device, because as you may have heard, warfare tends to be on the unpredictable side, and data infrastructure isn’t guaranteed. So cloud solutions, as practical as they may be for a consumer application, have been viewed with skepticism by the military establishment.

On the other hand, could the choice be viewed instead as shrewd, considering the efforts that DARPA and others are going to in the creation of a connected battlefield? My guess is that this isn’t actually a strategic move, but a pragmatic one: they bait the hook with a cloud solution and reel it in when they’ve got the resources to make it something locally-hosted. Last year they showed a similar app but on a larger platform. Miniaturization isn’t a trivial step, and they probably thought it worthwhile to gauge interest with this cloud version before going all in. Right now the military smartphone platform is still in flux so it would be unwise to start loading their eggs into one basket or another. But decentralized processing isn’t such a bad bet to make, and Raytheon seems to understand that.

iPhone 4S Presale Demand Is 'Extraordinary,' Says AT&T

NEW YORK -- AT&T Inc. says initial demand for the iPhone 4S has made it the most successful iPhone launch of the company has ever had.

The telecommunications giant said Friday that it received more than 200,000 preorders for the iPhone 4S within the first 12 hours that the Dallas company began taking orders for the popular Apple smartphone.

AT&T and rivals Sprint Nextel Corp. and Verizon Wireless started taking pre-orders for the iPhone 4S on Friday.

Apple Inc. is making the latest version of the iPhone available on Oct. 14.

AT&T shares added 10 cents to $28.60 in aftermarket trading. The stock rose 3 cents to $28.44 during the regular session.

Identity Theft Bust Exposes Need For 'Smart' Credit Cards

When authorities announced Friday that they had charged more than 100 people in a massive identity fraud operation, they did not just blame the alleged thieves. They also blamed the credit card companies.

At a press conference, Queens district attorney, Richard A. Brown, accused U.S. credit card companies of “putting too much money into marketing and not enough into security” and claimed they “would rather take the losses” than invest in proven security measures, according to The New York Times. Deputy Inspector Gregory T. Antonsen, the commander of the New York Police Department’s Identity Theft Squad, told reporters the bust showed the need for computer chips implanted in credit cards to deter fraud.

Experts say the United States is far behind Europe in adopting smart cards, which require cardholders to enter a personal identification number on a keypad, similar to a debit card transaction. Smart cards deter fraud because they contain computer chips that encrypt transaction information and require thieves to not only steal card data but also know the cardholder’s PIN, experts say. The card's computer chip also has the potential to generate one-time-only passwords for more secure online commerce, experts say.

"It makes it much harder to commit fraud," said David Robertson, publisher of The Nilson Report, an industry trade publication.

While European banks have issued millions of smart cards to consumers, U.S. banks still rely largely on credit cards with magnetic stripes, which are more vulnerable to thieves, experts say.

That partly explains why fraud in the United States accounted for a growing proportion of global fraud losses last year, according to a study issued by The Nilson Report last week. The U.S. loses 9 cents to fraud for every $100 worth of credit and debit card transactions, while the global average is 4.5 cents, according to Robertson.

U.S. banks have been reluctant to issue smart cards because it would require retailers to make expensive upgrades to their payment systems, which they have been reluctant to do, said John Hall, a spokesman for the American Bankers Association.

“The chip technology is certainly more secure but if you can’t use your chip card anywhere it doesn’t do anyone any good,” Hall said.

But that may start to change as credit card companies try to compel retailers to accept the new technology. In August, Visaannounced that retailers who do not support smart cards by 2015 would be liable for fraudulent transactions. Meanwhile,MasterCard has said ATM owners must accept smart cards by 2013 or they will be liable for fraud stemming from their machines.

For retailers, smart cards are one of several new forms of payment that require expensive upgrades to their terminals, including payment systems that allow consumers to wave their mobile phones over a card reader, according to Joe LaRocca, senior asset protection adviser for the National Retail Federation.

The cost of transitioning about 15 million retail terminals to accept chip-based cards is between $12 billion and $15 billion, Robertson said. Retailers believe banks should help fund the conversion, LaRocca said.

The effort to compel retailers to accept chip-based credit cards represents a significant shift in the attitude of the credit card industry, Robertson said. Historically, card issuers have made such large profits that fraud was viewed as a cost of doing business, he said. But now, the credit card industry is becoming less profitable and fraud is becoming less accepted, he said.

The push also reflects a concern that thieves will increasingly focus on exposing vulnerabilities in magnetic-stripe credit cards in the United States as the rest of the world adopts the more secure smart cards, Robertson said.

Smart cards might have deterred the widespread fraud operation detailed Friday by authorities in New York, Robertson said. The crime ring, dubbed "Operation Swiper," involved thieves who posed as retail workers and used skimming devices to steal credit card data, then programmed that data into the magnetic stripes of blank credit cards, authorities said. The scheme netted an estimated $13 million in fraudulent purchases. New York police called it the largest identity theft bust in U.S. history.

However, smart cards may not be immune to hackers, either. Last year, researchers at Cambridge University found they could make a payment using a smart card without knowing the card’s PIN by using a device to intercept communications between the card and the terminal.

The effort to compel retailers to accept chip-based credit cards represents a significant shift in the attitude of the credit card industry, Robertson said. Historically, card issuers have made such large profits that fraud was viewed as a cost of doing business, he said. But now, the credit card industry is becoming less profitable and fraud is becoming less accepted, he said.

The push also reflects a concern that thieves will increasingly focus on exposing vulnerabilities in magnetic-stripe credit cards in the United States as the rest of the world adopts the more secure smart cards, Robertson said.

Smart cards might have deterred the widespread fraud operation detailed Friday by authorities in New York, Robertson said. The crime ring, dubbed "Operation Swiper," involved thieves who posed as retail workers and used skimming devices to steal credit card data, then programmed that data into the magnetic stripes of blank credit cards, authorities said. The scheme netted an estimated $13 million in fraudulent purchases. New York police called it the largest identity theft bust in U.S. history.

However, smart cards may not be immune to hackers, either. Last year, researchers at Cambridge University found they could make a payment using a smart card without knowing the card’s PIN by using a device to intercept communications between the card and the terminal.

The effort to compel retailers to accept chip-based credit cards represents a significant shift in the attitude of the credit card industry, Robertson said. Historically, card issuers have made such large profits that fraud was viewed as a cost of doing business, he said. But now, the credit card industry is becoming less profitable and fraud is becoming less accepted, he said.

The push also reflects a concern that thieves will increasingly focus on exposing vulnerabilities in magnetic-stripe credit cards in the United States as the rest of the world adopts the more secure smart cards, Robertson said.

Smart cards might have deterred the widespread fraud operation detailed Friday by authorities in New York, Robertson said. The crime ring, dubbed "Operation Swiper," involved thieves who posed as retail workers and used skimming devices to steal credit card data, then programmed that data into the magnetic stripes of blank credit cards, authorities said. The scheme netted an estimated $13 million in fraudulent purchases. New York police called it the largest identity theft bust in U.S. history.

However, smart cards may not be immune to hackers, either. Last year, researchers at Cambridge University found they could make a payment using a smart card without knowing the card’s PIN by using a device to intercept communications between the card and the terminal.

The researchers concluded that smart card technology “is seriously flawed” and “should be considered broken.”

Griffin TechSafe Locking Case + Cable Lock keeps your iPad 2 secure

Mobile devices like the iPad, the iPhone, and the iPod touch have one unfortunate trait in common -- they're very easy for someone to steal. With the great demand for the iPad 2, you will want to keep it locked away somewhere or take it with you everywhere just to keep thieving hands off of the device. Now Griffin Technology has announced the TechSafe Locking Case + Cable Lock for the iPad 2 (US$79.99), a way of locking your iPad to a desk or table to make it much more difficult for it to be stolen.

Design

Compared to some of the beautiful cases I've had the pleasure to review, the TechSafe Locking Case is very plain. But it looks and feels sturdy, and that's what you want when you're using the case and the included cable lock to keep your iPad 2 from walking away.

Griffin TechSafe Case for iPad 2

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The case slides apart for easy installation of the iPad 2, with the top frame sliding off of the bottom frame. You drop the iPad 2 into the bottom piece, then slide the top frame back on. The result is a very solid case. On the back of the bottom piece are two rectangular bumps. These not only add an area to help you grip the iPad 2, but each has a small indentation that can be used to expose a fold-out stand. One of the stands props the iPad 2 up vertically in landscape orientation for watching movies, while the other is useful when typing on the iPad.

The lock is the niftiest part of the setup. Griffin's TechSafe Cable Lock design makes it possible to secure laptops like the MacBook Air that don't have a Kensington lock port. To do this, Griffin created a hardened steel "LockBlade" that slides into the small opening in the hinge area between the screen and keyboard of the MacBook Air. The included cable lock has a hook on it that fits into a hole in the steel LockBlade, securing the laptop to the cable and to a large, immovable piece of furniture.

FunctionalityThe TechSafe case is very well made. All of the pieces in this puzzle need to fit together perfectly, and the case slides onto and off of the iPad 2 easily. If you have another case that you love to use with your iPad 2, but you'd like to secure your iPad in a hotel or conference room while you're eating dinner or partying with friends, just slip off the other case, slide the iPad 2 into the TechSafe, slide in the LockBlade, and clip on the combination lock.

On the Locking Case, the LockBlade slides into a slot on the case. That keeps the case from sliding open and connects it to the cable lock. It's a smart way to reuse the Cable Lock technology on a different type of equipment, and it wouldn't be out of the question for Griffin to even extend this to a Locking Case for iPhone 4/4S and iPod touch. In situations where you want to keep those items from walking away, a case like that could come in very handy.

The stands are very usable and well placed on the case, and I found the "bumps" on the back of the case to be perfect for getting a good grip while carrying the iPad 2 around.

Now, my one concern. Although this is a security case and it's a pretty good one, it would take a determined thief with the right tools only a few seconds to get the iPad out. What tools? A small pocket tool like a Leatherman with a built-in saw would rip right through the plastic, making it a cinch to pull out the LockBlade and walk off with the iPad. However, in most situations a thief may overlook anything that has a lock attached to it simply because it takes time to work on it. This deterrence factor will probably help you more than the plastic than the case is made out of.

I do recommend that buyers look at one more piece of equipment that Griffin has developed to work with the cable lock and case -- the $19.99 Locking Security Clamp can help you in those situations where you can't find a suitable piece of furniture to lock your iPad to.

Conclusion

Griffin's TechSafe case and the cable lock are the right product at the right time. For those who need a way to secure an iPad to a table or other piece of furniture, it's a reasonably-priced solution and a heck of a lot less expensive than replacing an iPad.

Apple reportedly working with AT&T to display '4G' in status bar

AT&T is reportedly pressuring Apple to advertise the 14.4 Mbps theoretical maximum download speed of the iPhone 4S as "4G" in the iPhone's status bar. Given AT&T's aggressive attempts to market HSPA+ as 4G, that's not surprising. What is surprising is that according to This is my next, Apple is apparently bowing to that pressure and will show"4G" in the iPhone 4S status bar. AT&T has confirmed it is "working with Apple" on the matter.

While HSPA+ is faster than the standard supported by the iPhone 4 and earlier phones, it is not "true" 4G even if AT&T is advertising it that way. Given the litigious nature of the mobile industry, particularly any time Apple's involved, it seems like a terrible mistake for Apple to bow to AT&T and advertise a feature the iPhone 4S doesn't actually offer.

If AT&T and Apple do indeed tout "4G" in the iPhone 4S status bar, you can be virtually certain you'll be seeing the following headline or some variant of it all over the Web very soon afterward: "Class action lawsuit begins over false '4G' iPhone claims." You can be just as certain that various pundits will go out of their way to blame Apple more than AT&T. It's all so very predictable that it's hard to imagine what possible advantage Apple sees in agreeing to AT&T's proposal.

We've dug through the iOS 5 firmware in an attempt to locate icons for 4G status in the iPhone 4S status bar. We weren't expecting to find such an icon in iOS 5.0, and we didn't -- all that's there are the icons for EDGE, GPRS, and 3G (UMTS). If Apple is indeed planning on hyping 4G in the status bar, it's going to have to come about in a future iOS update.

The IPhone 4S On AT&T Vs. Sprint Vs. Verizon: Which Network Is Best?

The iPhone 4S went up for pre-order late Thursday night, and for the first time ever the new iPhone will be available on the three largest cell phone networks in America: Verizon, AT&T and Sprint. Perhaps, with these mobile carrier options, you're trying to decide which network to choose for your new Apple phone; the information below should help.

For Talkers: VERIZON and AT&T

Are you a talker? A recent survey suggests that you probably aren't, but if you are a chatty Cathy, the cheapest voice plans for anytime minutes are on Verizon and AT&T. For 450 minutes of talk time, Verizon and AT&T charge $39.99, compared to $69.99 on Sprint. Upping your minutes, you get the same price spreads, with Verizon and AT&T being $30 cheaper than Sprint:

Verizon: $39.99 for 450 minutes, $59.99 for 900 minutes, $69.99 for unlimited minutes
AT&T: $39.99 for 450 minutes, $59.99 for 900 minutes, $69.99 for unlimited minutes
Sprint: $69.99 for 450 minutes, $89.99 for 900 minutes, $99.99 for unlimited minutes

For Data Hogs: SPRINT

With the iPhone 4S, Sprint has famously become the only U.S. mobile carrier to offer unlimited data with Apple's smartphone. While AT&T and Verizon have canceled their unlimited data plans for new customers, Sprint recently announced its plans to keep unlimited data plans even with the iPhone 4S. Savings for those who use a lot of data--people who stream movies on their phones, download and send graphics-heavy web pages or photos, or generally do anything that requires constant web refreshing--could be huge on Sprint:

AT&T Data Plans: 2GB for $24, 4GB for $45, 5GB for $55, 7GB for $75, 10GB for $105, 12GB for $125
Verizon Data Plans: 2GB for $30, 4GB for $50, 5GB for $50, 7GB for $70, 10GB for $80, 12GB for $100
Sprint Data Plans: $10 unlimited

Fastest Network: AT&T

This is surprising, considering that AT&T is consistently ranked as the worst network in most parts of the United States by J.D. Power and Associates. But thanks to a new chipset in the iPhone 4S that only works on AT&T's HSPA+ network, the much-maligned carrier stands poised to have the fastest network of the three iPhone carriers.

Here's the thing: The iPhone 4S chipset, as noted during the Apple media event where the device debuted, can supposedly get close to 4G speeds. But that chipset only words on the HSPA+ network that AT&T has deployed (while its competitors have been building up their 4G networks). According to AT&T, this means wireless speeds that are twice as fast as those on Verizon and Sprint; according to cnet, we should believe this claim when we see it, saying AT&T still has some mechanical work to do before these speeds will be seen by their entire network. It will be interesting to see whether these HSPA+ speed claims hold true and could certainly bolster AT&T's reputation if they do.

Most Reliable 3G Network: AT&T

PCMag did some testing on mobile networks in America earlier this year, and while Verizon's 4G network defeated its competitors nationally, the iPhone 4S is not a 4G LTE device. On 3G networks, AT&T was judged to be the best in terms of "3G Success" (simply, its ability to connect to the Internet where a 3G network is present) edging out Verizon's 3G network and fairly well destroying Sprint's 3G network. Again, if these test results hold up on a national level (and, fair warning, certain cities are notorious for having poor 3G coverage from AT&T), then AT&T could be the most reliable and fastest mobile Internet network for the iPhone 4S.

Text Messaging: Sprint

The release of iMessage for Apple's new iOS 5 means that iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch owners will be able to text each other over 3G or WiFi in real-time for free, a la BlackBerry's popular BBM feature. Using iMessage will eat up data, however, rather than your monthly text messages, which is one reason to search out good text message rates when choosing a network, especially if u r a big-time txtr.

The underdog Sprint once again has the best prices, by a long shot, for text messaging plans. It's almost not even worth comparing, but here it goes:

AT&T: 20 cents per text message, and 30 cents per picture or video message; $20 for unlimited
Verizon: $5 for 250 texts, $10 for 500 texts, $20 for unlimited
Sprint: Free unlimited text messaging with voice plan

Customer Service: Verizon

According to the most recent U.S. Wireless Customer Care Performance study from J.D. Power, published in July 2011, Verizon has the strongest and most highly-rated customer service among full contract U.S. mobile carriers, defeating Sprint and AT&T handily. Verizon received 5 out of 5 "Power Circles," while both Spint and AT&T were awarded 2 each. In the February 2011 survey, Sprint and AT&T received 2 out of 5 Power Circles while Verizon got 4, losing out to T-Mobile; Verizon won the overall customer care survey for all of 2010.

Talk & Surf: AT&T

You may have seen the commercials : AT&T is the only carrier that allows you to talk and surf the web on the iPhone, and the addition of Sprint to the competition does not change that. It is one of the biggest differentiators and advantages over Verizon and Sprint.

Early Termination Fees: AT&T or Sprint, depending

If you decide you don't like the service you're getting with your iPhone, how much will it cost you to jump ship? AT&T and Sprint are the winners here, with:

AT&T is $325 minus $10 for each full month you've had your iPhone.
Verizon is $350 minus $10 for each full month you've had your iPhone.
Sprint is $350 minus $20 for each full month you've had your iPhone after four months.

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To be very reductive, when it comes to the iPhone 4S, Sprint is the cheapest, AT&T has the best network and Verizon has the best customer care and, statistically, you're probably already on their network, as they have the most customers in the United States by a margin of tens of millions. Which network you choose should largely be decided by what you value in your phone--cost, or service, or reliability, or speed--and all of these carriers have both their pros and their cons for prospective iPhone 4S buyers. There is not one "best" network for the iPhone 4S, and you should be very skeptical of anyone who tells you otherwise.