Force Update Check On Your Android Phone

Checking for a new update is all part of the fun of owning an Android device, but it seems that the familiar method of requesting a check via your handset's settings menu doesn't always bring up an update that might actually be available for your handset.

Not to fear though because there is another method of checking for updates viaour handset's keypad. Hit read more for details.

New solar machine could generate hydrogen fuel, food for your future vehicle

A new prototype solar device has been concocted to convert sunlight into fuel, much in the same way a plant does. Eco-minded folks will probably understand that conventional photovoltaic panels "must use the electricity they generate in situ," and thus, cannot deliver energy at night; this here device takes a rather unorthodox approach, using the sun's rays along with ceria (a magical, marvelous metal oxide) to "break down carbon dioxide or water into fuels which can be stored and transported." In theory, at least, the device could be used to create hydrogen and / or carbon monoxide, with the former being obviously useful for fueling up hydrogen-based cars of the future. Hit read more for details.

Video : Xerox shows off Smart Document Review table

You have a lot of documents you've acquired over the years, hundreds or thousands in some semblance of order thanks to folders and whatnot. Now, imagine taking the output from hundreds or thousands of others, all with their own ideas about organization, and finding only those pages relevant to a certain topic. That's what legal aides have to do in cases where a major corporation is being investigated, and we're thinking that's a major target market for Xerox's Smart Document Review. Hit read more for details.

Facebook Overthrows Yahoo To Become The World’s Third Largest Website

We’ve seen this one coming all year. Facebook is now the third largest website in the world, taking the No. 3 spot from Yahoo, according to comScore. Facebook drew an estimated 648 million unique visitors from across the globe in November, 2010, compared to 630 million for Yahoo. In October the two sites were dead even with 633 million worldwide unique visitors each (actually Facebook had already passed Yahoo by a smidgeon in October with about half a million more visitors). The only two Web properties left which are bigger than Facebook are Microsoft (869 million worldwide visitors) and Google (970 million) when you look at all of their sites collectively. Click red more for details.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos And Priceline CEO Jeff Boyd In Top 5 “Wealth Creators” List

Chief Executive magazine and Applied Finance Group have published their third annual ranking of CEO “wealth creators” and “wealth destroyers”.

In the former category, the list of top 5 performers includes Priceline.com CEO Jeff Boyd, Apple CEO Steve Jobs and Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos (see full list here). Hit read more for details.

iPhone alarms not working come New Year's Day 2011

We're not exactly sure of the cause of this fancy new issue affecting Apple's super cool iPhone line of cellphones, but apparently you've got trouble come 1/1/2011. According to an explosive stream of frustration-filled tweets on the Twitter microblogging service, when the clock strikes midnight, one off alarms will cease to sing out. The issue sounds eerily similar to recent Daylight Savings Time trouble we witnessed back in November, although we saw both repeating alarm and single alarm failures.

So how can you fix this potentially life-ruining problem? Hit read more for details.

Article - An iPhone Lover’s Take On Windows Phone

Here is an interesting piece I found on TechCrunch about Windows Phone 7 written from the perspective of an iPhone owner. Hit read more to find the article!

Forbes - 2011: The Year Android Explodes!

All the bells and whistles that you have heard in the past few months over 2010 about the phenomenal success of Android is just being called the foundation for the actual meteoric rise of the platform by Forbes. Go ahead and read an interesting article I found on TechCrunch that talks about the rise of Android and the possible consequences it will have on Apple! Hit read more for the full article.

Sony Ericsson PlayStation Phone to be called 'Xperia Play'?

We just caught wind of a Sony Ericsson EU trademark registration for "Xperia Play," and SE PR firm Jung Relations has registered a variety of Xperia Play domain names, including XperiaPlay.com, .net, and .org. Yes, that certainly sounds like a promising name for the PlayStation Phone (although not quite as promising as, you know, "PlayStation Phone,") but honestly we wouldn't bet on anything at this point. We've got a feeling we'll either find out either at CES or at MWC in February -- hold on tight.

Motorola Mobility Acquires Cloud Storage Startup Zecter

Could Motorola be feeling the heat from HTC's successful cloud service HTCSense.com?

Motorola subsidiary Motorola Mobility has acquired cloud storage startup Zecter. Y Combinator-backed Zecter is best known for developing cloud streaming and storage services ZumoDrive and ZumoCast. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but we hear from sources that Motorola is buying all of Zecter’s products, technology and the team including founder David Zhao. Hit read more for details.