Articles filed under Technology

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  Elgin OKs small business incubator plan
  Feb 22, 2012 12:00 AM Elgin City Council members' commitment to interest subsidies for a proposed small business incubator will give the project life. Steve Knisel said he plans to close on the building at 216 Prairie St., Friday, giving Imago Studios the chance to open by mid-March. City Council members approved Knisely's application for the Downtown Business Loan Interest Subsidy Program during Wednesday's council meeting, agreeing to reimburse $37,489 in interest payments over the course of five years.
  

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  YouTube enlists big-name help to redefine channels
  Feb 20, 2012 12:00 AM YouTube is enlisting Hollywood's help to reach a generation of viewers more familiar with smartphones than TV remotes. The online video giant is aiming to create 25 hours of programming per day with the help of some of the top names in traditional TV. The Google-owned site is spreading its wealth among producers, directors, and other filmmakers, using a $100 million pot of seed money it committed last fall.
  

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  Youth shaping future of online TV, movies, music
  Feb 19, 2012 12:00 AM Young people want their music, TV and movies now — even if it means they get these things illegally. A recent Columbia University survey found, in fact, that 70 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds said they had bought, copied or downloaded unauthorized music, TV shows or movies, compared with 46 percent of all adults who'd done the same.
  

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  Digital film switch daunts historic movie houses
  Feb 18, 2012 12:00 AM With the future of motion pictures headed quickly toward an all-digital format played only on pricey new equipment, will historic theaters be around?
  

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  Fashion designer goes low-tech, low-cost
  Feb 18, 2012 12:00 AM Norma Kamali went for 3-D video and online shopping over a traditional runway show when she rolled out her spring line last September. She earned thousands of new followers on Facebook and a nice bump in business in the process. This time, for fall, the technology-obsessed designer kicked it old school, relatively speaking.
  

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  FCC adopts new rules against ‘robocalls’
  Feb 18, 2012 12:00 AM The federal government is cracking down on “robocalls,” those automated phone calls with the tendency to interrupt Sunday dinners and otherwise annoy consumers.
  

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  Government Printing Office rolls out Obama budget app
  Feb 18, 2012 12:00 AM The federal budget may be getting bigger, but its run on the printed page is getting steadily smaller. Enter the government’s first mobile budget app. “You’d be surprised how much public interest there is in the budget,” said Davita Vance-Cooks, the acting public printer, whose office is rolling out the new app.
  

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  Investors sell off FarmVille, CastleVille stock
  Feb 18, 2012 12:00 AM Zynga, creator of “FarmVille” and “CastleVille,” reported better fourth-quarter results than what Wall Street was expecting, at least according to the average estimate compiled by FactSet. But Barclays analyst Mark May said the results fell short of some recent, more bullish expectations.
  

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  Look ma, no wires for Apple-friendly speaker
  Feb 18, 2012 12:00 AM The Beloit 12 speakers for your Apple gadgets resemble a compact, aluminum-clad picnic basket. It measures about nine inches by five inches, and stands about seven inches tall, with a rubberized top that provides easy access to the power, volume controls and wireless-network indicator. At about six pounds, it’s easily transportable without being featherweight; a leather shoulder strap completes the basket metaphor.
  

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  Cable lets hospitals go high-tech with remote diagnosis
  Feb 18, 2012 12:00 AM As growth in TV customers slows cable companies are turning to hospitals for new revenue sources. More doctors are finding ways to use cable for remote dianoses for rural patients or those en route In order for The companies are ramping up sales staffs, trying to squeeze more money out of a network they used to use mainly for carrying TV signals. To do that, they need to loosen the grip phone companies such as AT&T and Verizon Communications have over health care customers.
  

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  Review: 3 online services that track your spending
  Feb 18, 2012 12:00 AM My approach to tracking my spending has traditionally been to wait for credit card bills to come, then (hopefully) pay them off. Three new online services promise to help you do a better job of tracking as you buy. All three services scan electronic receipts you get by email for details such as products, merchant and price. Two of them even handle paper receipts sent in by camera phone.
  

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  Angry Birds join Facebook, hope for 800M likes
  Feb 18, 2012 12:00 AM Angry Birds has joined Facebook. The popular avian menace game debuted on the social network globally this week. Rovio Asia senior vice president Henri Holm said the company launched the new version of the game in Jakarta because it’s the “world’s most Facebook-connected city.”
  

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  Billionaire investing in Google, Comverse
  Feb 18, 2012 12:00 AM Billionaire George Soros’s firm added shares in Google and Comverse Technology in the fourth quarter, leading purchases of technology stocks by asset managers in the quarter.
  

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  Local emergency alert service sees growth
  Feb 17, 2012 12:00 AM Jacob Hargrave of Grayslake and Glenn Graham of Vernon Hills are planning to grow EverybodySafe.com, a site that allows first-responders and hospital personnel to quickly text, email or call your immediate family or other contacts when an emergency strikes.
  

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  Swiss craft janitor satellites to grab space junk
  Feb 15, 2012 12:00 AM Swiss scientists said Wednesday they plan to launch a “janitor satellite” specially designed to get rid of space junk, the orbiting debris that can do serious and costly damage to valuable satellites or even manned space ships.
  

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  FCC plans to nix wireless network that may jam GPS
  Feb 15, 2012 12:00 AM Federal officials plan to kill a private company’s plans to start a national high-speed wireless broadband network after concluding it would in some cases jam personal-navigation and other GPS devices.
  

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  Who’s hiring? Think tech
  Feb 12, 2012 12:00 AM Employers across a range of industries have stepped up hiring. The economy gained 243,000 jobs in January. The reasons why businesses are hiring vary across industries, but tech is one area showing steady growth.
  

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  A look at tech companies with IPOs this year
  Feb 11, 2012 12:00 AM
  

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  Facebook’s Saverin agreed to sell shares to Digital Sky in 2010
  Feb 11, 2012 12:00 AM
  

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  Looking for work? There may be an app for that
  Feb 11, 2012 12:00 AM Looking for a promising career in a lousy economy? A new study suggests you’re apt to find it in apps — the services and tools built to run on smartphones, computer tablets and Facebook’s online social network. The demand for applications for everything ranging from games to quantum physics has created 466,000 jobs in the U.S. since 2007, according to an analysis released this week by technology trade group TechNet.