Yahoo continues its race against the shadow of a Microsoft acquisition by their latest new services release spree with Shine, a content portal geared to women. some may even find it a riff of ivillage. something kinda ironic considering Yahoo runs their search for them but it is obvious they are going for Glam, the Lifestyle website geared for Women that have been raising lot of funding and that have even started to acquire others in ther market like StyleMob so they can cover as much ground as possible in Lifestyle and fashion content targeted at Women for their ad network campaigns.

Yahoo Shine wil be bringing content from partnered blogs but everything that gets into this new content portal looks to be curated, as truly hand picked by a group of editors instead of just automating the process. something they could do if they wanted, but this kind of venture requires to be treated in the same way a women magazine to truly thrive, and that is where they are going for.

The look of the portal is very important and surprisingly Yahoo Shine got a nice look in a Gazzette like layout.

The true strenght of Shine is that Yahoo got the back end to make the site work right. Yahoo has experience with news, has been experimenting with user powered with Yahoo Buzz and now has a good idea of what can be expected to run niche news content in focused format like Yahoo OMG! Celebrity Gossip site while having a understanding of their Target Audience. in this case 25-54 women as posted by Techcrunch.

Yahoo Shine does show as a good prospect to compete in this crowded market thanks to the crumbling of USA newspaper industry and a contraction of the Magazine market. the opportunity to bring eyes into focused content portals like this one is a bet that Yahoo can make expecting to win for it since there is so much money to be made on this market since is the most desirable by advertisers.

Adobe is not exactly a company known as friendly to Linux users, but now that is finally changing with the recent annoucement that they will be joining the Linux Foundation and that the only reasons they had not added Linux support for AIR until now is because they needed to wait for development to Flash core components to end first. This recent news provides a triple punch making official that Adobe will be now supporting their most widespread technologies for Linux at par with the development done in Windows and the Mac because they are now part of the Linux Foundation, that Flash for linux is now up to date compared to the other platforms and that thanks to that they will now be providing Adobe AIR 1.0 for linux along with Flex Builder for everyone to use.

While this moves may look as good spirited. I think that is only about the PR boost they expect to receive in exchange what Adobe is interested and because they knew they needed the good PR to balance things with Microsoft recent moves in this area.

Anyway, still a win for the Linux Crowd that now can go and download a Alpha version of Adobe AIR 1.0 and should finally be blessed with a better experience while handling Flash content.

The idea of location-based services for cell phones has been around for some time, the concept could be incredibly helpful in for example, assisting emergency services to locate an individual for rescue.

These kinds of services could also be very useful in helping a person navigate through a city they are not familiar with. Another possible use for location-based services is allowing friends and family to know exactly where you are at all times.

Observers believe that this type of service is what they consider to be the ‘missing link’ in mobile social networks.  A GPS enabled cell phone would be able to contact a ‘buddy list’ and display the cell phones location to anyone in the owners approved list.

Communication giant Verizon Wireless has announced a partnership with Loopt to enable these types of location-based services to become a reality. Loopt will offer mobile social networking that allows people to share details of their location, including what are known as geo-tagged photos, as well as status messages.

Loopt is already available on a very small scale, via Sprint Nextel’s network, and their sister company Boost Mobile.  This new partnership deal with Verizon will make the system available to a much wider audience.

The main aim of the Loopt services is to make cell phones into what they describe as ‘friend radars’ that will allow friends to know when your location is close to theirs, allowing the convenience of knowing when someone is nearby to meet up.

This concept could obviously be used to track the whereabouts of everyone from salesmen to schoolchildren, and such knowledge may give great to sales managers and worried mothers.  However, the obvious shadow over this idea is how many cell phone owners would wish their location to be known to others at all times?

Loopt claims that its will allow for several privacy controls at the owners disposal.  Analysts believe that these features will in fact, become an incredibly popular attraction.  In addition, that they may become very widespread over the next few years, possibly developing into a standard cell phone feature.

The industry believes that its initial market for these location services will not be anxious mothers, but 18 to 24 year olds, who will be even more anxious to let their friends know exactly where they are hanging out.

The big wireless corporations are also very mindful of the potential backlash should news headlines suddenly announce that a sexual predator has stalked a victim with the use of this technology.

Such news could bring public opinion and regulators demanding controls on these potentially easy to violate services. Verizon Wireless is very mindful of the potential backlash that could come should their services be misused, and the companies shares take a serious tumble by being associated with such a tragedy.

On top of these concerns, the wireless companies are also fearful of the potential ‘big brother’ uses of this tracking technology. Moreover, they also have concerns that more mature clients may be worried about potential privacy issues.

Starting in April customers of Verizon Wireless will be able to find out if Loopt is for them for only $4 per month.

Apple is preparing to launch its wireless high speed version of the iPhone. Rumours have been flying around for some time as to when Apple will release their new iPhone and who would manufacture it.

It is impossible to hide a huge order from the world’s stock markets so now it seems to be official that the new generation iPhone will be in production shortly, and a summer release looks probable.

Long time, front runner for the much coveted manufacturing contract for the new gadget, Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Has secured an initial order, totaling 11 million units. Some of those iPhone’s will be the existing model 2.5G, the rest will be the new and upgraded 3G.

Insiders say that Apple is on target for a June 2008 launch of the 3G. This will come around the year after the original iPhone was unveiled. Last year’s launch was marked by a very limited opening supply of the phones, followed in the third quarter by a more widespread availability. The feeling is that the 3G will probably follow the same pattern.

Scott Craig, well known analyst, working for Bank of America believes that Apple’s production plans indicate a significant increase in. This can be interpreted as a boost in sales, and Mr. Craig believes that Apple is aiming to sell 8 million iPhones by the end of the year.

To put that into perspective, for every one million additional phones that Apple can sell, that will equate to $400 million extra profit.

Other respected analysts believe that Apple’s order with Hon Hai is over-ambitious in a fairly typical fashion for the company, which has a tendency to overestimate potential sales. The idea behind this strategy seems to be that should sales suddenly boom, Apple will be in a position to request additional stock from the manufacturer.

These analysts believe that Apple will actually only produce somewhere around half of the projected 11 million units this year. They further believe that the initial production run for the 3G will probably be around one million units. With possibly 5 million more 3G’s by the end of 2008.

One big question mark over the 3G is what will Apple do with their existing model? The new phone is set to utilize AT&T’s much quicker network capabilities; this will give the 3G a big boost in speed, which will be welcomed by the phones Internet users.

The 3G will also have a host of new features that will include a GPS navigation system. Apple were previously posting job advertisements on their site, requesting applications for “The recognition technology you create may extend beyond Mac OS X to other applications and the iPhone.” A teaser that have left many wondering if this new technology will be available on the new 3G. It seems certain that the older model will quickly see relatively large reductions in price.

Apple is clearly hoping that its line of phones will give it an end of year sales boom, especially if the new model becomes the ‘must have’ Christmas gadget. It should be remembered that Apple is not the only player in this game.

There are several other companies with similar touchscreen units, aimed at taking on the iPhone. Sony received a big ‘wow factor’ when it displayed its upcoming Xperia that includes a unique sliding keyboard. The nuvifone from Garmin may also give Apple a run for its money.

In addition, don’t forget the next BlackBerry, the 9000, which may be as anticipated as the new iPhone, and has a huge number of loyal fans around the world.