Apple is investigating recent reports of iPhones having exploded in Europe, Reuters says. Last week, a teenager in France injured his eye when his girlfriend’s iPhone exploded.

A European Commission spokeswoman told Reuters:

Apple have come back to us … and what they’ve said to us is that they consider these are isolated incidents. They don’t consider that there’s a general problem.

They’re trying to get more information on the specific details of those incidents (reported in the media) and they will do tests as necessary to investigate the possible cause.

A spokesman at Apple Europe said the company was waiting to get the damaged phones from the customers, but did not comment on its communication with the European Commission.

MSNBC, the joint venture between Microsoft and NBC, has acquired the Chicago based hyper-local information site EveryBlock in a several million dollar deal.

The two year-old experiment in hyper-local news is available in 15 cities (New York, San Francisco, and Seattle to name a few) deeply covers local communities with a range of topics which span from announcements to news coverage, blog entries, civic data, photos and dozens of other types of information — just by typing your address, neighborhood name or ZIP code.

The evident aim of the acquisition is to compete with local newspapers and other forms of media. EveryBlock is capable of providing stunning stats for specified local areas which strengthens the base of MSNBC.com making it a more vivid news source. It is all about weaving more local results into the site and this could even assist the new search engine Bing.

Founded in 2007, with a $1.1 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, we have to agree that this is a wonderful achievement for a start-up company with just six employees. What’s even more interesting is that MSNBC plans to keep EveryBlock independent and will help it continue grow to other cities, too.

[via NYTimes]

All the Apple gadgetry fanatics realize the importance of the Keynote event which the company holds since 2005. The event discloses all about the updates related to Apple products such as new iPods, iPhones or iTunes new features.

Hence why we think that you should know that this year the “grand ceremony” will be held on Wednesday on September 9th. Most likely the will be Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, for the keynote event has has been held there on all previous occasions.

Sadly all the hype regarding the event revolves around Steve Jobs making his first public appearance after coming back from his medical leave.

More to it, the buffs expecting to see the Apple Tablet will have to return home disappointed since it’s now pretty obvious that the project has been postponed and we’ll get our eyes on one, no earlier than next year. Of course that doesn’t mean that Steve won’t have one to play with in front of everyone.

Smells like, it’s going to be an exciting fall!

[via allthingsd] Image courtesy of dekuwa

Not many know what retweeting (RT) on Twitter is — but you probably do. However, for those who don’t, retweeting is getting more attention towards a particular tweet by copy pasting it as your own and crediting the original author with an @ mention and finally indicating that it is a retweet. And this is how Twitter wants to facilitate the open exchange of information to have a global impact whilst also having an efficient dissemination of information across the entire Twitter ecosystem. That very inspiration will see this feature being officially added to Twitter.com.

Phase one of project retweet is to show the developer community how it will work from an API perspective as well as a user perspective.

The final details for project retweet are still getting ready and as of now, Twitter has managed to reach the first phase which caters to the developers. Hence why applications related to the same are being sought.

Consequently, the first official launch of retweeting will be for a selective set of users and once the assessments are made here, a full retweeting tool will become public for all.

So that leaves me to only two questions. Will Twitter beat Google in popularity, and … will you retweet this?

Nimbuzz, the mobile social messaging application for cellphone is ready for a download on an Android OS with a number of rocking features that have the capability to make Nimbuzz one of the most admired message applications out there. That happens after the Symbian version, the iPhone VoIP app and the TG01 version.

It comes with a smart buddy list layout which displays the avatar and presence information in one in combination with community and resource information.

Another great feature is a time sensitive user interface where a light touch will open your buddy’s profile and a stronger touch will instantly begin a new chat.

There are home screen notifications which make you aware of any activities (incoming chats for instance) while Nimbuzz runs in the background. Just in case you wish to switch between 2G, 3G and WiFi networks, there is an auto-reconnect feature that makes things easier for you.

Since the Android users are getting a chance to use Nimbuzz for the very first time they get a unique opportunity where only Nimbuzz integrates Skype IM and local social networks such as Hyves in the Netherlands.

Looks like a nice thing to play with, eh? It’s free to download at the Android Marketplace.

Full press release after the jump

(more…)

Is Apple finally targeting the lucrative Social Networking business? The big question has a lot of confusing answers and the latest speculation to add to that long list of answers — after the Paypal killer, is that Apple is keen on tying iTunes with a social application that should release to the market in the near future (whatever that means).

The application will be similar to Yahoo One Connect and will be capable of consolidating all social networking services.

As a consequence you will be able to broadcast what music you are listening to and you could even share music with people on your network. Not just that, you could connect with your friend’ friends and update all your statuses at one go. In combination with iTunes 9, your music status could also be broadcasted.

The problem with all these is that nothing is confirmed, which just leaves us in a state of jeopardy for now.

[via BGR]

Is there is an Apple PayPal Killer in the ranks!? That’s the question on everyone’s minds these days.

After being rumored to come up with the Apple Tablet and a bunch of new iPhones, the newest thing we’re itching to know is if Apple is planning a service that would allow the iTunes Store account holders to make purchases on participating third-party sites across the Internet.

Considering that behind the rumor are the Wall Street gossips, you’ll have to take it with a pinch of salt before getting too excited. There’s no official word from Apple, but if we’re to consider the success of Paypal and the fact that Facebook recently introduced a “pay with Facebook” feature, Cupertino may want to cash in on their amazing user base in the online payments business.

Could it be that Apple depends too much on their hardware products (iPhones, Macs, iPods) — which may see a drop in sales, soon — and they’re looking for a way to diversify their business?

No matter whatever the reason is, we’d love to get it tested out.

[via BusinessWire]

Google has acquired On2 Technologies in a stock for stock transaction which will see each outstanding share of On2 common stock being converted into $0.60 worth of Google class A common stock.

The overall acquisition cost for Google is $106 million and Google has taken this step to thoroughly use On2 futuristic video compression techniques for its own expansion. YouTube currently lacks ways that could assist High-Definition HD Video conversions and compressions, which means that the deal is much needed considering the bright future Google sees for their service.

The deal is expected to close by the fourth-quarter of this year and the investors look already pleased as the On2 stock closed 62% over the premium at the close of yesterday.

Google is certainly feeling the pressure with its contemporaries expanding its domains and this deal will have surely relaxed the nerves a bit. Now it can further evolve the immensely successful YouTube to newer heights.

[via TechCrunch]