Kogan debuts second Agora smartphone: 5-inch 720p display, 1.2GHz quad-core CPU, Jelly Bean, $189

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/18/kogan-agora-smartphone-mark-ii/

Kogan's Agora brand may not drive techies wild like Galaxies or iThings do, but its motto is clear: try to deliver reasonable hardware at the lowest possible price. The company's first bid for a piece of the smartphone pie launched earlier this year, and today we're learning of its sequel. Design-wise, this second Agora handset is a little curvier than the last, with a soft key replacing its predecessor's physical home button. A 5-inch, 720p IPS LCD display occupies the face, and inside we're looking at a 1.2GHz quad-core MT6589 Mediatek SoC (Cortex-A7), 1GB of RAM and 4 gigs of internal storage, expandable with up to 32GB cards of the microSD variety. It runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, hosts two SIM slots, an 8-megapixel main camera, 2-megapixel front-facer, 2,000mAh removable battery and 3G (850 / 1900 / 2100), WiFi (802.11b/g/n) and Bluetooth 4.0 antennae.

Most importantly, it costs $189, £149 or 199 Aussie dollars -- it's up for order now at the relevant source links and is expected to ship to the US, Australia, the UK and other European countries, as well as a couple of Asian markets starting October 3rd. We're hoping to get a review unit through soon, so keep an eye out over the coming weeks for our impressions. In our opinion, anything that rings up at under $200 is worth a fair trial.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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Source: Kogan (UK), (Aus), (US & elsewhere)

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drag2share: DOLLAR TANKS, RATES COLLAPSE, STOCKS EXPLODE TO ALL-TIME HIGHS

source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/~3/-i4fAFOzMw0/markets-react-to-fomc-2013-9

The Federal Reserve's FOMC statement is out, and it's a shocker!

The Fed is NOT TAPERING its massive $85 billion large-scale asset purchase program.

Almost no one expected this.

The Dow went from -40 to +63 in the blink of an eye.

The S&P 500 got as high as 1,718, which is an all-time intraday high.

The U.S. dollar tanked, and gold spiked.

The 10-year Treasury note yield tanked to 2.76% from around 2.86% before the announcement.

Here's the market action charted via Bloomberg's Michael McDonough:

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drag2share: Bloomingdale's Figured Out How To Stop Customers From Wearing Expensive Items Once And Returning Them The Next Day

source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/~3/loWWyIG0qFA/bloomingdales-black-tags-on-clothes-2013-9

Bloomingdale's has figured out a way to keep customers from wearing expensive items for big events and returning them the next day. 

The retailer is putting three-inch black plastic tags in visible places on garments so the wearer can't easily conceal them, report Cotten Timberlake and Renee Dudley at Bloomberg. Once the clunky tag is removed, shoppers aren't allowed to return the item. 

The practice of buying an item with the intention of wearing it once and returning it is called "wardrobing." 

Shoppers are notorious for "wardrobing" for big-ticket items like prom dresses and other formalwear. 

The problem cost the industry $8.8 billion last year, according to the National Retail Federation. 

But Nordstrom told Bloomberg that it didn't plan on emulating Bloomingdale's strategy. 

“Our experience is that if you treat the customer with respect, they respect you back,” spokesman Colin Johnson said.

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Sony Cyber-shot QX10 review: a WiFi 'lens camera' that mounts directly on your smartphone

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/18/sony-qx10-review/

Earlier this month at IFA, Sony introduced an entirely new type of point-and-shoot camera. The QX10 and its big brother, the QX100, are missing a built-in LCD. Instead, framing, image review, configuration and even storage are all handled on another device: your smartphone. These "lens cameras," as they've become unofficially known, mount directly on a handset you already own, pairing with Sony's PlayMemories Mobile app via WiFi. The benefits are considerable. The absence of a display allows for a more compact body, improved power efficiency and a lower price tag. The QX100, for example, includes the same optics as Sony's flagship RX100 Mark II, but retails for $500, compared to $750 for its fully equipped counterpart. The QX10 is the more mainstream of the two, with a smaller footprint and an affordable $250 price tag. We focus on this model just below.%Gallery-slideshow85039%

Filed under: Cameras, Peripherals, Sony

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iTunes Radio now rolling out in iTunes 11.1 update, brings Spotify-like streaming to the desktop

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/18/itunes-radio-now-rolling-out-in-itunes-11-1-update/

The release of iOS 7 is undoubtedly the big Apple news of the day, but there's another new product rolling out with it as well: iTunes Radio. The Spotify-like feature, which was announced during Apple's iPhone event last week, is part of the new iTunes 11.1 and allows users to create custom radio stations based on their personal music libraries or musical proclivities (e.g., genre, artists, track, etc.). Naturally, the service, like its competitors, is freemium, so you'll have to pony up $25/year for iTunes Match in order to keep the hits coming sans advertisements. The update should be hitting all Macs running OS X 10.6.8 and up now, so while you're frantically hitting refresh on that iOS update, you may as well check for this -- or head to the source below for the download link.

Filed under: Desktops, Software, Apple

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Source: Apple

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