This Money Management App Is the Wallet of the Future

Quick Pitch: Adaptu Wallet is a financial planner disguised as an iOS app.

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Genius Idea:Adaptu Wallet links accounts, monitors spending and calculates future expenses to give users an accurate read of how much money they currently have.

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The Internet makes spending money easier than ever before. But here’s something that online shoppers and real-life mall rats may not know -- online money management is just as simple as spending.

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Sites like Mint have been providing budgeting tools via the web for years, but , which launched in 2010, has taken the concept to the next level -- namely, your iOS device.

Those who indulge in retail therapy without realizing that their lack of money management skills may land them in actual therapy would do well to invest in Adaptu’s free app, Adaptu Wallet. It's the first personal finance app that allows users to control their cash flow.

Adaptu Wallet eliminates physical bulk by allowing you to take photos of membership cards and the like while simultaneously functioning as your financial conscience.
If you’re about to partake in an impulse purchase, the app will first tell you if have the dough, and then whether or not the spending fits into your overall budget.

Adaptu Wallet takes into account all of your financial information, from bank accounts to bills, and forces you to adapt to your current economic climate. And since the future is never far off, it also calculates upcoming expenses to provide you with an accurate read of how much fun money you actually have.

“At Adaptu, we encourage our members to plan for long-term, achievable financial goals, while enjoying the immediate benefits of feeling more in control of their money on a daily basis,” Lisa Hannah of Adaptu told Mashable.
Just like with an ATM, a 4-digit PIN is required to access your information, and everything is encrypted with bank-level security. And don't worry about a disconnect — every time your bank makes a change to your accounts, Adaptu will automatically do the same.

For the more seasoned budgeting enthusiast, investment summaries for IRA and 401(k) accounts are available. Essentially, Adaptu Wallet is a pocket-sized financial planner.

Would you manage your money with Adaptu Wallet? Tell us in the comments.

This story originally published on Mashable .

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Microsoft to release Windows 8 on October 26

on Wednesday announced that its next-generation operating system tailored for a world shifting from personal computers to smartphones and tablets will be available on October 26.

Windows unit boss Steven Sinofsky revealed the Windows 8 debut date at a sales meeting, Microsoft communications manager Brandon LeBlanc said in a blog post.

Windows 8 will be available in 109 languages across 231 markets worldwide, according to LeBlanc.

Microsoft has promised to make the new operating system available in August for computer, tablet or smartphone makers to build into hardware.

It "is simply the biggest deal for this company in at least 17 years," Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer said last week, referring to the time since the launch of the game-changing Windows 95 operating system.
"It's the glue; it's the foundation of everything Microsoft is built on."

Microsoft reported that it has sold more than 630 million licenses of Windows 7, and that the software powers the majority of business desktop computers.

Windows 7 went public in October 2009.

The latest version of the operating system that is the norm for personal computers will also be used on many smartphones and tablet computers, including Microsoft's own Surface tablet to be launched this year.

The Redmond, Washington-based firm has gone on record stating that Surface tablets would hit the market when the Windows 8 operating system became publicly available.

Windows 8 allows users readily to store and share personal data among various devices under the "SkyDrive" cloud computing service.

Rivals Apple and Google offer such services, which let people store digital data on servers in the Internet "cloud" and access files from devices of their choosing.

The new Microsoft system will support a wider range of devices, including touch- and stylus-based smartphones and tablet PCs as well as desktop and laptop machines.

Versions of Windows 8 have been tailored for chips used to power various mobile devices.

The software giant has been trying to expand its presence in the booming market for smartphones and tablets, which is currently dominated by Apple and Google.

Microsoft

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Apple must run "Samsung did not copy iPad" ads: report

The notice, which is in effect an advertisement for Samsung, should remain on Apple's website for at least six months, the report said.

The judge, however, rejected Samsung's request that Apple be forbidden from continuing to claim that its design rights had been infringed, saying that Apple was entitled to hold the opinion, the news agency said.

Samsung said in a statement after the hearing: "Should Apple continue to make excessive legal claims based on such generic designs, innovation in the industry could be harmed and consumer choice unduly limited."

Apple declined to comment on Judge Birss's instruction.
(Reporting by Paul Sandle; Editing by Mark Potter)

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....How Nokia Dropped the Ball on Smartphones and Two Other Stories You Need to Know

Welcome to this morning’s edition of “ ,” a series in which we keep you in the know on what’s happening in the digital world. Today, we’re looking at three particularly interesting stories.

How Nokia Dropped the Ball on Smartphones

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Through a series of interviews with key executives, the has taken a look into Nokia's history, revealing how Nokia almost caught the touchscreen smartphone bandwagon, but ultimately decided to take a different course.
Probably the most revealing quote in the story comes from Nokia's chief designer Frank Nuovo. Looking at old Nokia slides, which show early touchscreen smartphone prototypes, Nuovo said: "Oh my God. We had it completely nailed."

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Study: Viewers turning to YouTube as news source

NEW YORK (AP) — A new study has found that YouTube is emerging as a major platform for news, one to which viewers increasingly turn for eyewitness videos in times of major events and natural disasters.

The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism on Monday released their examination of 15 months of the most popular news videos on the Google Inc.-owned site. It found that while viewership for TV news still easily outpaces those consuming news on YouTube, the video-sharing site is a growing digital environment where professional journalism mingles with citizen content.

"There's a new form of video journalism on this platform," said Amy Mitchell, deputy director of the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. "It's a form in which the relationship between news organizations and citizens is more dynamic and more multiverse than we've seen in most other platforms before."
More than a third of the most-watched videos came from citizens. Than more half came from news organizations, but footage in those videos sometimes incorporated footage shot by YouTube users.
The Japanese earthquake and tsunami was the most-viewed news event during the length of the study, which spanned January 2011 to March 2012. The top videos from Japan included footage from surveillance cameras, a news network and a Japanese Coast Guard vessel — a typical variety of sources.
Such dramatic events were often among the most watched videos. Other popular news events included the Russian elections, unrest in the Middle East, the collapse of a fair stage in Indiana and the crash of an Italian cruise ship.
"One of the things that emerges here is the power of bearing witness as a part of a news consumption process," said Mitchell. "Many of the most viewed stories that we're looking at here have real powerful imagery around them."
The results depicted both reasons for concern and encouragement for traditional news outlets. While citizen journalism accounts for a large slice of viewership on YouTube, its users are also eager distributers of professional news video. The study shows YouTube as a global news arena where professional and amateur video bleed together, and is made consumable in on-demand style.
That kind of atmosphere also makes for issues of authenticity. Though YouTube has guidelines for news video, they aren't always followed and some videos go viral despite uncertain sources.
"This is a young platform and there're certainly aspects of this interplay and the way information is going to flow that's still being worked out," said Mitchell.
A relatively nascent new organization, Russia Today, a network founded in 2005 and backed by the Russian government that often reports rumor, had easily the most videos among the most-viewed. The second most-viewed news organization among the top videos was Fox News, although the study pointed out that more than half of those videos were posted in criticism of the network.

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Microsoft, NBC dissolve MSNBC.com joint venture

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Microsoft is pulling out of the joint venture that owned MSNBC.com, freeing the world's largest software maker to build its own online news service.

The breakup announced late Sunday dissolves the final shreds of a 16-year marriage between Microsoft Corp. and NBC News, which is now owned by Comcast Corp. The relationship began to unwind in 2005 when Microsoft sold its stake in MSNBC's cable TV channel to NBC.

NBC is buying Microsoft's 50 percent interest in the MSNBC website for an undisclosed amount. MSNBC.com will be rebranded as NBCNews.com, and readers who logged into MSNBC.com late Sunday were automatically redirected to NBCNews.com.

The website will move its headquarters from Microsoft's corporate campus in Redmond, Wash., to NBC News' longtime home in New York.

The online divorce stemmed from the two partners' desire to gain greater control over their digital destinies as the Internet becomes an increasingly important part of their businesses.

The inherent constraints of being locked into a joint venture sometimes handcuffed Microsoft and NBC.

Microsoft, in particular, had grown frustrated by contract terms requiring it to exclusively feature MSNBC.com content on its own websites. That exasperation was exacerbated by the MSNBC cable channel's strategy to counter Fox News Channel's appeal to conservative viewers by tailoring its programming for an audience with a liberal viewpoint.

The strategy fed a perception that material from MSNBC's website was politically slanted, too.
"Being limited to MSNBC.com content was problematic to us because we couldn't have the multiple news sources and the multiple perspectives that our users were telling us that they wanted," said Bob Visse, general manager of MSN.com.

Now that it has shed those shackles, Microsoft is preparing to launch its own news service this fall. Although he declined to provide many details about the operation, Visse said the news staff will be about the same size as the roughly 100 people who created original content for the MSNBC.com.

By hiring its own news staff to feed material to its websites, Microsoft is embracing the same strategy as the owners of two other major Internet companies, Yahoo Inc. and AOL Inc.

Microsoft has leaned on its lucrative franchise selling personal computer software to pay for massive Internet investments that have rarely paid off, much to the frustration of its shareholders. The software maker initially invested $220 million in the MSNBC joint venture. It's unclear if Microsoft ended up making any money on the alliance. As a whole, the company's online operations, which include the Bing search engine and MSN portal, have lost more than $10 billion in the past seven years.

Even as it sets out to compete against NBC News, Microsoft will continue to highlight the top stories from its former partner for the next two years under terms of the split.

NBC News, in turn, believes it will be able to attract more traffic to its stable of websites by forging other partnerships that were off limits when it was tied to Microsoft.

"There is no question that we are going to have more flexibility to make our own decisions," said Vivian Schiller, NBC News' chief digital officer. "This is really an amicable breakup. We think competition will make us better."

MSNBC.com and its affiliated sites ranked as the Internet's fourth most popular site for general news in the U.S., with nearly 50 million visitors in June, up 5 percent from last year, according to the research firm comScore Inc.

Yahoo's recently formed alliance with ABC News topped the charts with 81 million visitors, followed by AOL/Huffington Post, and CNN.
As part of its online restructuring, NBC News plans to create a new online destination for the MSNBC cable channel's personalities next year.
Although it will be based in New York, NBCNews.com will retain a significant staff in the Seattle area, according to Schiller. About 170 of MSNBC.com's 300 employees worked in the Seattle area.

Microsoft is letting NBCNews.com remain in its Redmond office while it looks for a new location in the area.

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Nokia Knocks Lumia 900 Price Down to $50

has cut the price of its in half just three months after it hit the U.S. market. The Windows-based smartphone now costs $49.99 with a two-year contract from AT&T.

The new price took effect Sunday, reports. and 's website have both been updated to reflect the change.
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The price cut comes less than a month after Microsoft unveiled its next-generation mobile OS, -- and with it, news that Lumia 900 phones . If the phone wasn't selling well before that bit of news dropped, it's likely selling much worse now.
A Nokia spokesperson told the Journal that the move was "a normal strategy that is put in place during the life cycle of most phones." He pointed out Samsung's Galaxy S II experienced a similar price drop in that timeframe.
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Sales of the Lumia 900 ; the device was listed as the bestselling smartphone on Amazon the week following its release. were overwhelmingly positive.
The Finnish company has had a tough quarter. Last month, Nokia announced it will close its factories in Finland, Germany and Canada, and lay off up to 10,000 workers before the end of 2013. The company reports second-quarter earnings on Thursday.

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