The letter (PDF), which comes from the National Association of Attorneys General, expresses “strong concerns” with the new privacy policy. The letter cites several reasons for concern with the new policy. The primary concern is that the policy “appears to invade consumer privacy” by sharing information users enter in one of Google’s services with all of Google’s services. They note that consumers may not wish to have their information distributed in this way, and that the lack of any opportunity to opt out of the unification is therefore troubling. The letter also expresses concern for Android users, who are in many ways even more tied to Google’s products and services than the average internet user. For them, the letter points out, Google’s statement that those who do not like the unified policy need not sign in to their Google accounts does not apply.

The attorneys general also see a conflict between the new privacy policy and “a respect for privacy that Google has carefully cultivated as a way to attract customers.” They note that Google has repeatedly insisted that they value user privacy, and that this insistence has drawn many users to Google’s products. These users “are now having their personal information ‘held hostage’ within the Google ecosystem.”

The letter concludes with a request that Google reply to the attorneys general by February 29th to arrange a meeting to discuss the issues concerning the new privacy policy.

There is no word yet on what Google’s response to the letter will be. A request for comment sent to Google has not yet received a response.

The Kansas City Star reports that Google Fiber submitted the necessary applications to operate a video service in Missouri and Kansas, which strongly suggests the city will be getting some kind of television service related to or provided by Google. As ever, Google was doing its best to downplay the excitement. “We’re still exploring what products will be available when we launch Google Fiber,” Google spokeswoman Jenna Wandres said in an email to the Star.

Giving Kansas City a streaming internet service that moves at the speed of one gigabyte per second would be a great way to explore those options, as I’m sure the citizens of Kansas City will agree.

The application submitted by Google reveals a little more info – at least enough to sugar-coat those already sweet fantasies of video-streaming bliss.

In the Kansas application, Google said it “will utilize national and regional video headend facilities” – essentially programming collection points – “to send IPTV” – a television-over-Internet technology like that used in AT&T’s Uverse service – “across a private (Internet protocol) network to subscribers.”

Keep in mind this is all speculative reporting at the moment, but… if it walks like a duck and sounds like a duck, right?

For those who don’t know about the fantastic Marvel vs. Capcom series, imagine taking all the greatest characters and fighters from both the Marvel and Capcom universes and mashing them together in one giant fighter.

While Capcom might have some raised some ire among gamers over their decision to release Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 so soon after the release of the original, the decision seems to be a good one.

The expanded roster is worth the $40 asking price alone as it adds 12 new characters to the roster bringing the total character above 50. Some of the new characters include fan favorites Phoenix Wright and Rocket Raccoon.

Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 also adds some much needed balancing tweaks to the main game that make the game far more competitive but easier for new players to ease themselves into the mayhem. Players can also watch the other fighters duke it out live over the Internet with the game’s Spectator mode.

The game’s transition to Vita suffers no harm as its a nearly flawless port of the console versions. The only difference is that players can take the game on the go with them. It’s going to be my preferred version as I love playing fighters on handhelds over consoles.

The reviews so far confirm my suspicions that the game has turned out to be a great treat for portable fighting fans. You won’t want to miss this one, folks. Let Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 take you for a ride.

If you haven’t used Quara before here’s a discretion of what they do from the Quara blog site:

“Unlike traditional social networks, Quora gives you access to people who haven’t explicitly opted in to follow or friend you. This makes the product powerful, but it means that one person’s actions can affect many other people. Credits mediate the flow of information so that people aren’t overwhelmed by the increasingly vast number of other people who have access to them. This allows us to continue to build features that let you access large audiences and diverse groups of experts, and furthers our goal of connecting you with everything you want to know about.”

The whole system of currency is based on your reputation. If you answer questions with clear articulate and knowledgable answers you earn credit. If simply mock people and provide no insight or clarification, your reputation will suffer and you will earn very little. I guess it’s social capital at its very finest. Anyhow, it costs capital to post questions and now, to promote questions to larger audiences. But, if it’s a subject or question that you really need addressed, it must be worth it.

Here are some responses from users on the blog site about the addition of ‘pay for promotion’ at Quora:

“One tiny thing you might wanna consider: if you’re requiring an expenditure of 50 credits to ask a question, perhaps make the slider cap out so the user is left with 50 credits.”

Awesome. Thanks, Adam, for the announcement and a big thanks to the Team’s tireless efforts to make Quora a better place.

“I think this is awesome. Promoting an answer has already got me two upvotes out of the blue. My only concern is that even at 100 credits, that would mean I need 10 upvotes to recuperate my costs and that’s a high number of upvotes for the average answer.”

“It’s gambling. Spend some to promote a question with the hope or either getting more answers or upvotes. For those that want to play and really enjoy tracking the credits it’s a great feature. It’s going to change the nature of Quora more.”

“I’m just a little worried that good questions from new (ie not power or “celebrity”) users will get buried by the whole commodity market of credits, and people with influence (ie people with lots and lots of credits) will be able to pack user feeds with posts and questions which are more relevant to them than to everyone else.”

“Wow, 50 Credit cost to ask a question is HUGE! My gut reaction is that it will do a LOT to improve question quality on the site, as well as help reinforce the idea of questions being reusable.”

So it sounds like people are generally excited about the addition of the new feature, but there is some concern too. I haven’t used Quora so I wonder if this new ‘pay for promotion’ could drown out some highly relevant or interesting topics or questions. If the whole point is gaining exposure to get feedback or answers, how does a new user gain enough clout, or credit to even make using Quora worth while? I would really be interested to know. I guess I should use Quora to find out.

Dell’s revenue for Q4 last year was $16 billion, up 2%, while its net income was down 18%, at $764 million, compared to $927 million for the 4th quarter of 2010. Dell called 2011 the “company’s most successful financial year ever,” with a full year revenue increase of one percent to $62 billion, according to The Inquirer.

Michael Dell, chairman and CEO of the company, goes on to say, “I’m very pleased with our fiscal year results and the strong performance we’re seeing in our commercial businesses. We remain focused on developing and acquiring new technologies and capabilities, and our IT solutions portfolio has never been stronger. Customers are now seeing Dell in a fresh light, and we’re heading into the new year with strength and optimism.” Dell’s expanding strength as an enterprise solutions provider helped to drive revenues of late, which saw a record $18.6 billion in 2011. Dell’s net income for the fiscal year was $3.5 billion, up 33%.

Consumer business experienced a drop of 2% in revenue to $3.2 billion, and fell 43% in operating income to $39 million. The company attributed this to the general decline of the U.S. economy. Dell also released the Inspiron Duo last year, which has a unique flip-hinge design akin to a tablet, but likewise dropped out of the U.S. tablet market after discontinuing it’s Streak 7.

Dell expects revenue growth of 5 to 9 percent for 2012, with typical seasonal declines in its consumer and public businesses, for Q1 of this year.

These are complicated economic times and people are looking for whatever break they can get when it comes to parting ways with their hard-earned money. “Across the country, more Americans than ever before are turning to digital coupons to help them save their hard-earned cash,” said Jeanette Pavini, Coupons.com household savings expert. “The South and Midwest dominate the list of most frugal U.S. cities, out-saving other regions including the West and Northeast.”

Joining Atlanta in some good old southern frugality were Tampa (#2), Raleigh (#4), and Nashville (#10). However, the distinction of the most frugal region in the country belongs to the Midwest, where nine cities rank among the top 25 most frugal cities.

See below for the full list of the most frugal cities in the country. Oddly, what’s going on east of the Mississippi that’s got everybody couponing so much?

You may have noticed that Ohio has three cities in that list, two of which are in the top ten. Those three coupon-clipping cities have given Ohio the distinction of most frugal state in the United States.

People in Atlanta aren’t just printing off coupons and zipping out to stores, either. The city was the most “on-the-go” frugal city, as well, due to the high number of people using their mobile devices in order to cash in their coupons.

Anybody in these cities (or beyond) an unabashed couponer? What’s your favorite way to save? Share with the rest of us below in the comments.

The most popular activity for shoppers using their smartphone is price comparison. Countless apps in the iOS App Store and Android App Market allow users a myriad of ways to check prices of products at both online and brick-and-mortar retailers. Thirty-eight percent of smartphone owners check prices online while they’re in a store, and 38% also shop from their phones. Reading online reviews of products was the second most popular activity at 32%, while nearly a quarter (24%) look for online coupons.

Interestingtly, the least popular activity on Nielsen’s list is also the thing the most smartphone owners wish they could do. Only 9% of users said that they use their phone to pay for goods or services at the point of sale, yet over 70% of all app downloaders said they were at least slightly interested in doing so. Interestingly, iPhone users expressed more interest in mobile payment technology than Android users.

Several Android phones have the necessary near-field communication (NFC) technology to power mobile payment systems. Google even has its own mobile payment service, Google Wallet, that is available to some Android users. The iPhone, on the other hand, has no NFC capabilities, despite persistent rumors that the technology would be coming to the previous two generations of iPhone.

Rumors that the next iPhone would be getting NFC technology gained new life earlier this month when MasterCard executive Ed McLaughlin said in an interview that every handset manufacturer he knew of had NFC technology in the works. When asked if that included Apple, McLaughlin avoided answering directly, but insisted that every manufacturer was working to incorporate NFC.

Whether Apple really is working to incorporate NFC into the iPhone is certainly up for debate, but Nielsen’s numbers suggest that they have good reason to consider it. Almost 40% of iOS users said they were either extremely interested or very interested, while a further 36% said they were somewhat or slightly interested, leaving only 25% of iPhone users who were not interested in the technology at all.

What do you think? Would you like to see mobile payment technology come to the iPhone? Would you like to see it expanded on Android phones? Sound off in the comments.

A Japanese company has announced plans to construct an elevator capable of traveling all the way up to space that would peak at a terminal station where, even more incredibly, people live. The company, Obayashi Corporation, aims to complete a space elevator by 2050 thanks to the engineering wonder that is carbon nanotubes, which are said to be 20 times stronger than steel.

As you could probably imagine, the amount of carbon nanotubes needed to construct such a colossal elevator is a barely fathomable. Obayashi didn’t state exactly how much of the material would be needed, but the plan calls for a cable to be stretched into space about 96,000 kilometers (or 59,651.63 miles). To put that into context, that’s a quarter of the distance between earth and the moon. Have a gander at the diagram offered up by Obayashi that illustrates how this elevator might look.

Since I know you’re wondering how long the trek would be to take this great elevator through the sky, travelers can expect to spend about 7-1/2 days traveling up to the station.

The idea for space elevators has been around for several years and has been discussed by companies before. Have a look at the video below that, in addition to other things, features a space elevator-building competition hosted by NASA a few years ago. Going back even further, the USSR was even discussing plans for a space elevator all the way back in 1982, which generated much inspiration among sci-fi luminaries like Arthur C. Clarke.

The idea of a space elevator might seem counter-intuitive to some but, in practice, it makes more sense than any current means of space travel because commuting via space elevator would cost a lot less than launching space shuttles. And, as you can probably intuit, less cost for space trips means more trips into space. Michio Kaku, your friendly neighborhood physicist and futurist superstar, explains in the video below why this method of space travel would greatly benefit any exploration of outer space.

Sometimes, we humans really are an exquisitely imaginative and fun species.

Twitter’s engineering blog addressed the concern above in a blog post titled, “Simple Strategies for Smooth Animation on the iPhone.” The entry explains what causes slowdown in animation on the iPhone, how they avoided it and what others can do to make their apps run smoother on the device.

The post first explains how the iPhone handles animation. They say that animation on the iPhone is powered by Core animation layers. The GPU is not optimized to animate layers, so the CPU handles all the cell drawing. It then hands off the rest of it to the GPU as a texture to be displayed on your screen.

The problems with can come from two sources – either the GPU is being overloaded with too many operations or the CPU is not drawing the cell fast enough.

The team displays a simple short tweet as an example for how they fixed the problem of a GPU being overworked. Under normal circumstances, every element of the tweet from the avatar to the text would have to be drawn as separate cells by the CPU. The Twitter team fixed this problem by compiling all the text and the image into a single cell. This reduced the amount of work the CPU and GPU had to do.

Another way to reduce lag is to avoid blending. They point out that tweets on the iOS app have a “drop shadow on top of a subtle textured background.” They avoided the problem of blending by “reducing the area Core Animation has to consider non-opaque, by splitting the shadow areas from content area of the cell.”

They also suggest that developers check for pixel alignment. If the the width of the pixels is set an odd number, the program will set out to apply anti-aliasing to smooth out the edges. Anti-aliasing is one of the most expensive operations to operate on GPUs.

The team goes on to provide some code that will help solve an animation problem called a “pop” that occurs when a cell is about to scroll into view. They say that a cell only has 17 milliseconds “to provide content before you’ve dropped a frame.”

At the end, they point out that sometimes you just can’t apply any tricks to make animation go smoothly. The biggest problem comes from pictures in the “Discover” tab on Twitter for iOS. They succeeded in keeping smooth animation on these pictures by turning them into a pre-rendered image and storing them in a cache.

Hopefully these tips will help you to develop smoothly animated apps for the iPhone. I don’t know much about app development, but I know that a smooth framerate in video games keeps the player invested. I’m going to assume it’s the same in the app development world.

Innovation is a core motivator for the upgrade claims Biden in his report:

“Wireless broadband has the potential to transform many different areas of the American economy by providing a platform for new innovation. Areas where the innovations will likely have significant impact include consumer products and services, such as media-rich mobile apps and high definition streaming video; products to enhance business productivity, such as mobile video conferencing solutions and access to web-based business applications; health care, where the quality of care will be enhanced and costs reduced through products like patient-physician video conferencing and remote transmission of diagnostic information and images; and education, where digital classroom materials and educational applications are already enhancing learning.”

His report also speaks in depth about building a dedicated wireless network for public safety official and emergency services. He claims this will open clogged networks that many service people currently deal with and provide critical information on demand:

“With sufficient dedicated spectrum for public safety use, public safety personnel will have access to critical information even in emergency situations when commercial wireless networks are congested.”

He believes this could be a project that stimulates the economy as well as fueling innovation and could have a great impact on job creation:

“Like other information and communication technologies that have transformed the economy in the past, the spread of wireless broadband is likely to increase the rate of growth in per capita income; spur economic activity through new business investment; and support many new high- quality jobs.”

The effort and funds that are being set forth also put America on par with other countries like Japan and South Korea who have grown abundant with wireless and broadband options. Biden believes that all of these factors make an investment in fighting the “spectrum crunch” a wise investment that should be a real revenue generator for the country.